It looks like the corporate midwits running Volkswagen are finally facing the music. After years of coping and pretending everything was fine, reports show the German auto giant is prepping to axe up to 100,000 jobs and shut down major plants. This absolute bloodbath represents a clean doubling of their previously announced workforce cuts, proving that the executive suites have been down bad for a while now. While the company is refusing to comment on the leaked board presentations, the writing on the wall is clear: VW is in deep trouble.

Let's look at this bloated legacy monster. VW Group employs over 650,000 people across brands like Audi, Bentley, Skoda, Seat, and Cupra. That's a massive, union-protected bureaucracy that was built for an era that no longer exists. For years, the corporate suits convinced themselves that their legendary business model—"developing cars in Germany, producing them in Europe and exporting them to the world"—was an unstoppable cheat code. Turns out, it was just a massive cope that the real world has completely shattered.

The company's spokesperson basically admitted that their entire playbook is a skill issue. The world has fundamentally changed, and the old-school European model is officially cooked. High energy costs, insane regulations, and rigid labor unions have turned German manufacturing into an expensive joke, leaving them completely vulnerable to actual competition. Instead of producing high-margin vehicles that people actually want to buy, they've been burning billions trying to transition to electric vehicles that are piling up on dealer lots.

To try and stop the bleeding, CEO Oliver Blume is rolling out an €11 billion (£9.49 billion) cost-cutting overhaul, which is basically an admission that they've been burning cash like crazy. The proposed plans, which are scheduled to be debated at next month’s board meeting, include shutting down four major German factories in the medium term: an Audi plant in Neckarsulm, and VW plants in Hanover, Zwickau, and Emden. Imagine being a worker at one of these legacy plants, watching the executive board throw you under the bus because they couldn't balance a spreadsheet.

The spokesperson blamed the disaster on a bunch of predictable excuses: tariffs, competition, and "stagnating, sometimes declining" markets. They claim these external factors are hitting them with annual financial burdens in the "tens of billions of euros." But let's be real—the executive team knew these market pressures were coming and chose to ignore them while pushing a forced green transition that the average consumer never asked for.