The Transparent Factory Is The New Home Of Volkswagen ID. EVs

Volkswagen has started producing its latest ID.3 fully electric vehicle (EV) at its high technology low volume Dresden site called the Transparent Factory.

Originally conceived as an advanced assembly site for the flagship Volkswagen Phaeton limousine since the beginning of the new century, the Transparent Factory in Dresden, Germany, was retooled to assemble low volumes of the fully electric Volkswagen e-Golf in 2017.

Over 50,000 units of e-Golf have been produced at the Transparent Factory during a four-year production phase that ended in December 2020. 

With the shift to assemble just the all-new fully-electric ID.3, the company has called the Transparent Factory the new home of the Volkswagen ID. series. The centre aims to be a fierce campaigner of electric mobility through consultation and a focus on a holistic customer experience.

The Volkswagen ID series that is built on the Modular Electric Drive Toolkit (MEB) currently consists of the ID.3 hatchback and ID.4 compact SUV. At the initial stage, only 35 units of the ID.3 are assembled each day in a single shift at the Transparent Factory.

The centre also houses innovative business areas such as the “Future Mobility Incubator,” Volkswagen’s start-up program, and the “Future Mobility Campus,” a learning laboratory for training and further education together with a test field for Production 4.0. There are also guided tours to view the live assembly process of a vehicle. 

Site manager Danny Auerswald says, “We are a production plant, tourist attraction, event location, test lab and delivery centre – all in one.”

The Transparent Factory is already the fourth site in the world producing Volkswagen electric cars based on the MEB platform. The first site, the Zwickau plant, kicked off MEB production.

The facilities in Anting and Foshan, China also started production of MEB vehicles in December 2020. Together, these four plants have a maximum production capacity of more than 900,000 vehicles a year. 

The next sites in Emden and Hanover (Germany) with Chattanooga in the US are scheduled to begin MEB production in 2022. The Volkswagen brand expects 1.5 million EVs to be manufactured by 2025 and be a global leader in electric mobility.