Comment by mattalex

I wouldn't even say that VW is a failing company: They sold the largest number of EVs in the EU in 2025 (https://autovista24.autovistagroup.com/news/which-brand-domi...) and that is before you consider that e.g. Audi, Cupra and Skoda are _also_ VW brands (and some of the ford cars are built on top of VW's EV platform).

The main problem they have is that you just need a fraction of the number of people to build an electric car than what you need for a combustion car. You no longer need complex transmission, exhaust filtering, turbos, highly complex combustion engines,... all of which are marvels of engineering but no longer necessary for EVs. VW "main" (i.e. excluding sub-brands like audi) was already rather highly staffed (though part of this is due to them taking over some duties for their sub-brands), so the employee impact is higher than what you would expect, but even for a reasonably staffed car company this would imply huge layoffs and changes in the structure of the company.