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Residents note with pride that Zwickau has survived many upheavals. After Germany’s defeat in World War II, Soviet occupiers confiscated Audi’s manufacturing equipment. The carmaker moved to Bavaria and was later acquired by Volkswagen.
The Communist government that ruled East Germany converted the Zwickau factory to produce no-frills Trabant vehicles. The cars spewed blue exhaust and had a body made of plastic because of steel shortages. They could not compete with Western cars after the reunification of Germany in 1991. Thousands of Trabant workers lost their jobs. By the end of the 1990s, unemployment in the region exceeded 20 percent.
Volkswagen acquired the Zwickau factory after reunification and gradually expanded it into one of the company’s biggest production sites. The conversion to electric cars was momentous enough that Angela Merkel, the German chancellor at the time, attended a dedication ceremony in 2019, when the first battery-powered model rolled off the assembly line.
Not everyone in Zwickau is a fan of electric cars. The far-right Alternative for Deutschland party, which has 11 of 48 seats in the Zwickau City Council, has complained that Germans are being forced to buy electric vehicles, echoing comments from former President Donald J. Trump and other Republicans.
The national government, led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, angered many in Zwickau when it abruptly slashed subsidies for electric vehicles last year to deal with a budget crisis. Sales of electric vehicles in Germany slumped 14 percent during the first three months of the year, though they still accounted for 12 percent of new cars.
Still, few people in Zwickau are pushing for Volkswagen to go back to building gasoline cars.
“With a transition to a new technology, the question is always: Are you the first or the last?” said Constance Arndt, the lord mayor of Zwickau. “I think it’s always better to be first.”
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Kaynak: briturkish.com
