Tuesday, 2 p.m., the VW production lines in the Transparent Factory finally came to a standstill! The last ID.3 from Volkswagen rolled off the assembly line in Dresden. 28,686 of these vehicles were manufactured here, most recently a special edition of the 1990 ID.3 GTX FIRE+ICE in purple – a cooperation with BOGNER and the Dresden DJ Purple Disco Machine.
But it didn’t save the location. VW opened the futuristic building at the Great Garden in spring 2002 with such great hope. The fitters wore white gloves during final assembly. In addition to the car production, there was a gourmet restaurant on the ground floor in the car production area
Dying in installments
First, the Phaeton business sedan rolled off the assembly line for 15 years (84,235 vehicles), and at one point 2,186 luxury cars from Bentley (Flying Spur). This was followed by the e-Golf (50,401 units) from 2017 to 2020. Series production of the fully electric ID.3 started at the beginning of 2021. At full capacity, up to 800 people were employed in the Transparent Factory. At the beginning of this year there were 320 people, now there are 230. The “screw-in option” was particularly popular in the production of the ID.3. VW buyers were able to work on the last details of their vehicle themselves. According to VW, over 100,000 visitors came to the Transparent Factory every year.
Prominent VW fans
These included prominent people who picked up their cars themselves, such as singer Udo Lindenberg, actor Wolfgang Stumph, conductor Christian Thielemann and ex-boxer Axel Schulz, who personally picked up their Volkswagens in Dresden. The Pope also drove two vehicles from Dresden: a Phaeton in 2006 and, since 2023, two ID.3s that were manufactured in Dresden. The head of the church personally attended the handover to the Vatican. A total of 165,508 vehicles rolled off the assembly line in 24 years. The most were 16,155 e-Golfs in 2019, which were then produced in a two-shift system.
Employees continue to worry
Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer and the VW management were satisfied with having saved the Dresden and Zwickau locations. But exactly what will happen for a third of the remaining employees from January is still unclear. That’s why there was no big celebration for the last ID.3 from Dresden, just an internal employee meeting.
One thing is certain: there will be a cooperation with the TU Dresden, several companies will research the mobility of the future under one roof – the factory will be the new showcase for this. “From 2026, this place will become a platform for science and innovation,” writes the manufacturer on its website. There is “more to see, more to discover, more to understand”, “plus long-term insights into current research and development: from artificial intelligence to new mobility concepts.”
