Around 6,000 people could lose their jobs as Czech car making giant Skoda is set to make drastic cuts to keep up with an expensive electric vehicle rollout.
The car manufacturer hopes to boost their electrical vehicles sales by eight per cent, amid a global drop in demand.
The costly roll out of electric cars could see penny-pinching across the business, with up to 15 per cent of their 41,000 employees globally out of jobs.
A worldwide lack of demand has hit the electrical vehicle industry and in November the boss of Ford’s UK arm warned that Britain’s car industry is in crisis because of insufficient demand.
But Skoda is looking to continue its ‘electric evolution’ by selling a fully electric Octavia compact hatchback.
The Czech manufacturer already boasts a fleet of fully electric vehicles, including the Enyaq and Enyaq Coupe SUVs, and Elroq crossover.
Skoda CEO Klaus Zellmer told Automobilwoche, a German automotive newspaper, that job cuts will occur because of natural fluctuation.
He said it would ‘do Skoda good’ to introduce another battery electric vehicle and the Octavia could be a top seller.
Skoda has been contacted for comment.
News of the potential job losses come days after an Audi mega factory in Belgium closed, as tanking demand for electric vehicles saw 3,000 jobs cut.
The closing Audi factory in Brussels was billed as the ‘cradle’ of the German carmaker’s electric drive.
Audi first said it would restructure the plant in July, with suggestions that it was considering an early end to production there sparking huge protests in the following months.
Audi said a global fall in demand for high-end electric SUVs had tanked demand for its Q8 e-tron, to which the site was exclusively dedicated.
Production boss Gerd Walker said the closure was ‘painful’ and it was the ‘toughest decision’ he has made in his career.
In the UK a Renault and Dacia showroom in Doncaster will shut.
And in November, Luton’s 120-year-old Vauxhall factory announced plans to close, with Stellantis blaming government EV sales targets for the decision to shutter the factory.
The same month, Lisa Brankin, the chairman and managing director of Ford UK, called for the government to urgently introduce ‘incentives’ such as tax breaks to convince drivers to switch away from petrol and diesel.
She said Ford has invested ‘significantly’ in the production and development of EVs, with ‘well over’ £350million invested around electrification in the UK, adding: ‘So we kind of need to make it work.’
Although electric vehicle sales have slumped, the cars are more reliable than traditional cars and vans with petrol and diesel engines, researchers from the University of Birmingham and the London School of Economics found.
Their analysis found that battery electric vehicles not only had a lower likelihood of failure, but also a comparable lifespan to traditional cars and vans.