Item — HN Reader

> switching some lines to building military

It got vetoed by Qatar (their SWF owns 17% of all voting shares in Volkswagen) because that would have meant working with Israeli companies [0] despite Germany being dependent on the Israeli Arrow system [1] to counter Russian systems.

Now that factory (Osnabrueck) is one of the factories on the chopping block.

And this is why Volkswagen is going to be a slow moving train crash - Lower Saxony, the Qatari royal family, the Pötsch/Porsche family, and IG Metall are not aligned.

[0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-10/qatar-blo...

[1] - https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/germany-d...

1 comments

Bohoo, can't build weapons for genociders, poor me!

What a shitty management that can't find any solutions other than building weapons for war criminals.

> What a shitty management that can't find any solutions other than building weapons for war criminals

No one else wants the factory nor the workers other than Rafael's JV with the German government. Now they are part of the 100,000 being laid off.

Germany (and Romania) will still use the Iron Dome and other Israeli systems, but now it'll be "Made in India" [0], so the only people impacted were VW employees in Osnabrueck who are now laid off.

[0] - https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/byaub5cmfl

Again, Bohoo, shitty management can't find another solution somehow.