Journey through the European electric car crisis: The uncertain future of the Audi factory in Brussels

The case of this car factory in Belgium that has cutting-edge and low-emission technologies, and has been active since 1949 in the production of Volkswagen models, now seems to be an accurate indicator of a trend that is already underway:

European plants that produce electric cars are too expensive compared to EU market demand.

For this reason, Audi will stop production and this plant, which is in the municipality of Forest, will be sold.

As the factory's communications director Peter D'hoore explains to Euronews, there are two choices: either convert the factory for the production of other Volkswagen group models and components or sell it to other car brands. Both are complicated, because the proposals received do not meet the expected standards or criteria set by Volkswagen for potential buyers.

"Only one potential investor has agreed to rework his offer and now he will have some time to do so. It is important to us that as many people as possible remain employed at this site," says D'hoore, without specifying where production will be relocated.**

Audi in Brussels employs 3.000 people, plus another thousand in related industries, and the unions are on a war footing: they are asking the company to sell not to the highest bidder, but to those who will guarantee the greatest number of jobs.

After the one that paralyzed the city of Brussels on September 16, unions threatened with more strikes and protests.

They criticize the strategies of the European automotive industry, which in the transition to electric has focused on large and expensive models, not within the reach of ordinary people: the list price of the Q8 e-tron electric SUV, Audi's flagship model built in Forest, is around 80.000 Euros.

"Car manufacturers wanted to make big profits with electric vehicles right away and did not accept that the transition phase would generate fewer dividends and profits," Hillal Sor, a trade unionist at Metallos FGTB, told Euronews.

"So they bet everything on large, very luxurious, very expensive models that European citizens cannot afford. And so now in Europe we have overproduction, and that's why groups like Volkswagen want to close factories in Belgium and Germany."