VW faces factory closure

Volkswagen will close its main Wolfsburg plant for one day on Monday due to a shortage of parts from suppliers.
VW, along with Porsche and BMW, have announced that their suppliers are struggling to meet demands set by the manufacturers. Booming demand for German cars in China and the US have been attributed to the lack of parts needed in the manufacturing process.
The temporary VW plant closure - which can produce well over 3000 vehicles per day - is due to its shortage of engines and other parts. According to VW, "this will have no major impact" on the company but will help to "stabilise the situation". The production halt will also allow the manufacturer to install new production equipment.
Lars Holmqvist, chief executive of European auto suppliers association Clepa, commented that suppliers stopped production during the recession meaning that the the supply of electronic parts have been particularly hard hit and continuing to worsen.
According to Stefan Bratzel, director of the Center of Automotive Management at the University of Applied Sciences, component manufacturers are critical to the automotive industry, accounting for about 75 per cent of the value of an average car, up from 65 per cent 10 to 15 years ago.