Zwickau, eastern Germany: a town largely unknown beyond Germany's borders. Here, just over a hundred kilometres from Dresden, something historic happened in recent months – at least in the world of cars. For the Volkswagen plant that once produced some of the brand's most important models – the Polo, Golf and Passat – has converted to the production of electric vehicles. The last car with an internal combustion engine to be assembled on the old production lines was a Volkswagen Golf R Variant. From 2021, only zero-emission models based on the Meb platform will roll out of here, starting with the ID.3, which has already been on the assembly line for several months.

Why this is a symbolic handover

Some readers may, perhaps, have detected an excess of rhetoric in those opening lines. That is not the case: for Volkswagen, for the towns where this giant has put down roots, and for Germany as a whole, the car is not merely an industrial product. It is culture, tradition, national pride. The fact that the "cradle" of the Golf is becoming the birthplace of the brand's electric cars – and not only that: further down the line, Audi and SEAT models will also be built here – represents an epochal shift. To put it in perspective, no fewer than 6,049,207 Volkswagens have come off the Zwickau lines – Polo, Golf, Golf Variant, Passat and Passat Variant – in the last thirty years alone.

The largest electric vehicle plant in Europe

Zwickau will not only produce battery-powered models under the Volkswagen badge. By the end of the year, once the conversion of Hall 6 – the one from which the last Golf emerged – is complete, production will be expanded from the ID.3 to the ID.4 and an Audi SUV. Further ahead, SEAT will also assemble its own Meb-based model here. At full capacity, the Zwickau factory will have an output of 330,000 units a year, spread across six different models from three different brands. And don't think the Volkswagen Group's commitment to sustainable production ends there. In the Czech Republic too, specifically in Vrchlabí, a plan has been put in place to achieve carbon neutrality at the ŠKODA plant.

Zwickau, a model for the Volkswagen Group

What is being completed at Zwickau is an epochal shift for another reason too: it is the first complete conversion of a Volkswagen Group production site to electric car manufacturing. A "migration" that is as symbolic as it is significant – since others will follow – for a giant that has decided to commit with absolute determination to this type of vehicle, and which has invested no less than 1.2 billion euros in Zwickau alone. A substantial sum that also covers the 20,500 days of training for the site's 8,000 workers.

ID.3 as Beetle and Golf. Here's why

To leave no doubt about the significance of what is taking place at Zwickau, one must consider that there is a strong common thread running between the Beetle, the Golf and Volkswagen's first electric car, the ID.3. Indeed, according to Volkswagen itself, the latter plays exactly the same role that the two most iconic models have played in the past: symbols of change for the Wolfsburg company.