Six thousand people outside one factory gate is not a normal shift change. At Audi’s Neckarsulm plant in southwest Germany, that crowd showed up on July 29th to send Volkswagen a message: this factory, and the cars it builds, shouldn’t just vanish in a spreadsheet of cost savings.
The site still turns out some of Audi’s most familiar nameplates such as the A5, A6, A8 and the E-Tron GT, but it now sits on a short list of four German plants that VW is openly reviewing for possible closure in the 2030s.
