ID.Polo Orders Hit 50,000, But It’s Not Enough to Ease Volkswagen’s Existential Boardroom Crisis

Volkswagen's new ID.Polo EV draws 50,000 orders, but board mutiny and potential 100,000 job cuts overshadow as China sales crash 36.6% amid restructuring crisis.

Volkswagen has a rare bright spot to point to: its new ID.Polo family of electric vehicles drew 50,000 orders within four weeks of launch. That number, disclosed by the company, offers a glimpse of product appeal in a portfolio the CEO himself admits is popular but not profitable enough. Yet the glow from that micro-car barely reaches the sprawling Wolfsburg headquarters, where a boardroom mutiny, a potential 100,000-job reckoning, and a catastrophic slide in China sales have plunged Europe’s largest automaker into its deepest crisis in years.

The battle erupted on July 9, when Volkswagen’s supervisory board voted 12 to 7 to reject CEO Oliver Blume’s so-called “Zukunftsplan” – the future plan. The blocking coalition of labor representatives and the state of Lower Saxony, which holds a 20.2% voting stake, effectively paralyzed the restructuring. Blume responded with an internal intranet interview in which, for the first time, he put a concrete number on the cost-cutting imperative: up to 50,000 additional jobs worldwide could be at risk, on top of the 50,000 positions already slated for elimination in Germany by 2030. That brings the potential total to 100,000, though the CEO told Bild am Sonntag that “there are more intelligent solutions than closing plants.”

Of the already-agreed German cuts, 37,000 employment contracts have been signed and 27,000 workers are expected to leave by year-end. A further 5,000 management roles are to disappear by decade’s end. The arithmetic behind Blume’s warning is stark: Volkswagen’s overhead costs are roughly 20% above those of comparable competitors. If that gap remains, he argues, the headcount reduction is mathematically unavoidable.

Four German factories are in the crosshairs. Emden, Hannover, Zwickau and Neckarsulm – together employing around 40,000 people – have no guaranteed capacity utilization for the 2030s. Reports suggest vehicle production could end at Zwickau and Emden by 2031, at Hannover by 2032, and at Neckarsulm by 2034. For the Osnabrück plant, Volkswagen is exploring a switch to defense industry contracts as an alternative to carmaking. The broader production plan calls for slashing annual capacity from 12 million vehicles to 9 million, a response to estimated European overcapacity of 500,000 units. The model lineup will shrink by up to 50% and the number of trim variants by as much as 75% by 2030.

None of this is happening in a vacuum. Volkswagen’s second-quarter global deliveries fell 9% year-on-year to 2.08 million vehicles. The China market – once the engine of growth – was the biggest drag, with sales tumbling 36.6% to just 424,300 units. In the United States, EV deliveries plummeted 69% as federal subsidies expired and restrictive tariff policies bit hard; U.S. tariffs alone are now costing the group an estimated €5 billion annually. Even in Europe, where EV sales edged up, the overall picture is one of dwindling margins and mounting competitive pressure.

The stock market has taken notice. Volkswagen’s preferred shares closed recently at €71.30, a mere 3% above the 52-week low of €69.20 hit on July 1. The shares have lost 32.8% since the start of 2026, and are trading nearly 24% below their 200-day moving average. The 14-day relative strength index stands at 31.1, signaling a deeply oversold condition, while the annualized 30-day volatility of 32.4% underscores the nervousness surrounding the stock.

Labor leaders and IG Metall are crying foul, accusing management of waging a “war on co-determination” and floating plans to spin off the core brand and components division from Volkswagen AG to sidestep the works council. The next regular supervisory board meeting is not scheduled until September, leaving the company in a strategic limbo through the summer. Whether Blume will seek an extraordinary general meeting to push his plan remains an open question. For now, the lines are drawn, the ID.Polo orders are a welcome but modest balm, and the future of Volkswagen’s 100,000 jobs – and its identity as a German industrial powerhouse – hangs in the balance.