Production in transition
Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles is building the Bulli of the future
With the ID. Buzz AD, the next chapter in the Bulli story begins in Hanover. The VWCV main plant combines tradition, electric mobility and a new production logic. The pre-series is already running, and series production of the autonomous model is scheduled to start in 2027.
The Hanover plant stands, like hardly any other site of Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, for the industrial history of the Bulli. Vehicles of this series have been built here since 1956. In the meantime, however, the factory has long since become more than just the brand’s traditional plant. With the ID. Buzz, Multivan, local battery production and the preparations for the ID. Buzz AD, Hanover brings together key elements of the future of Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles.
This is particularly visible in the ID. Buzz AD. The vehicle represents the attempt not only to test autonomous mobility, but to transfer it into existing high-volume production. Pre-series production is starting up in Hanover and is to be ramped up to around 500 vehicles over the course of the year. Series production is scheduled to start in 2027. With this model, Volkswagen links the ambition of bringing the first fully autonomous series-production vehicle in Europe to market. For the plant, the ID. Buzz AD is therefore more than a new derivative. It shows how Hanover is evolving from a classic Bulli plant into a factory where electric mobility, software, sensor technology and new industrial processes come together.
A site with industrial history
The history of the plant began with the success of the first Transporter. When series production of the T1 started in Wolfsburg in 1950, daily output initially stood at ten vehicles. Demand, however, grew so strongly that in 1955 Volkswagen decided to build a dedicated Transporter plant in Hanover. The factory was built within just one year. On 8 March 1956, the first T1 rolled off the production line in Hanover. To this day, the site is closely associated with the Bulli. The site now covers around 1.1 million square metres. According to Volkswagen, around 13,000 people work there for Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and Volkswagen Group Components. Over the course of the current year, the eleven millionth vehicle is to be built in Hanover.
Plant manager Richard Slovak emphasises precisely this historical breadth. “People here are not just working, history has been and is being made here,” he said. At the same time, he described the core of the plant’s history as permanent renewal. “Change is not an exceptional state here, but part of our DNA.” In fact, the site has been repeatedly rebuilt, expanded and realigned. Over the past 70 years, six Bulli generations have been produced there, as well as the LT, Beetle, Amarok and other models. Slovak spoke of a total of 16 different vehicles that have been manufactured in Hanover. The plant thus lives not only from its history, but from its ability to keep adapting to changing requirements.
Today, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles in Hanover builds the all-electric ID. Buzz and ID. Buzz Cargo as well as the Multivan with diesel and plug-in hybrid drive. The site therefore operates various drive concepts and platform logics in parallel. Stefan Mecha, CEO of Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, therefore calls Hanover a key site of the transformation. This role is also reflected in the production figures. According to Slovak, 530 vehicles are currently built per day. In the second quarter, output is to increase to more than 600 vehicles. At the same time, the individual model series are gaining weight in the market. According to the company, the ID. Buzz grew by 102% in 2025 compared to the previous year. For the Multivan, the increase was 31%. Lars Krause, executive vice-president, sales and marketing, at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, also points to the market position of the electric model. Around one in four all-electric commercial vehicles in Europe is an ID. Buzz. In Denmark and Norway, it is every second one. It is precisely this parallelism of volume production, variety of variants and technology change that characterises the plant. Hanover is not a pure e-factory, but a mixed factory in which different types of drive, models and production logics come together.
The conversion to an e‑mobility plant
The most profound turning point in the recent past was the start of series production of the ID. Buzz. It marked the beginning of Hanover’s fundamental transformation into an e‑mobility plant. As early as 2022, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles had modernised large parts of the factory and upskilled employees for this purpose. At that time, according to the company, 4,000 of the total 13,500 employees were trained for the production of electric vehicles. High-voltage qualifications and adapted training profiles were also added, for example for systems and high-voltage technology. The conversion therefore affected not only new products, but also processes, qualifications and the factory architecture. With the ID. Buzz, another technical architecture based on the MEB was introduced at the plant. This meant Hanover had to master different models, platforms and drive concepts in parallel. It was precisely this simultaneity that turned the ramp-up of the electric Bulli into a complex industrial restructuring programme. Volkswagen identified Hanover early on as one of the German ID. sites alongside Dresden and Emden and invested accordingly in equipment, processes and qualification.
The capacity planning also showed the scale of the ambitions. At the start of the ID. Buzz ramp-up, the model’s daily production capacity initially stood at 45 vehicles. In the longer term it was to rise to 180 units per day. The annual capacity was initially set at around 15,000 ID. Buzz and ID. Buzz Cargo units and was later to grow to up to 130,000 vehicles. Under optimal conditions, Volkswagen at the time even considered an overall cross-model capacity of the plant of up to 900 vehicles per day to be possible. These figures alone made it clear that the ID. Buzz was not intended as an electric niche model, but as a vehicle that was to realign the site industrially. For Hanover, the ID. Buzz was therefore far more than a new model. It became the catalyst for a plant transformation that had a deep impact on organisation, technology and the workforce. The traditional Bulli site did not transform overnight, but step by step into a plant that not only assembles electric mobility, but scales it industrially.
The ID. Buzz AD as a new industrial test case
Even more crucial for the future of the plant, however, is the ID. Buzz AD. The autonomous shuttle is not simply another offshoot of the electric Bulli, but places new demands on production logic and factory integration. Christian Rosen, VP product strategy & new business for autonomous MaaS & TaaS, emphasises that the ID. Buzz AD is not retrofitted at a later stage. The technology required for autonomous operation is already integrated in the plant. The self-driving vehicles initially pass through the same production stages as the other ID. Buzz models. Only for the specific autonomous functions is an additional production loop planned. This is where the combined roof module with cameras, radar and lidar units as well as a high-performance computer on the passenger side are installed. This is followed by sensor calibration and vehicle commissioning. It is precisely this embedding in existing series production that is the decisive point. It turns the ID. Buzz AD from a show car into an industrial product.
The project is structured on a division-of-labour basis. The driving system comes from Mobileye, the operator platform from Moia. Volkswagen assigns the ID. Buzz AD to the so-called Moia turnkey solution, meaning a complete solution comprising vehicle, autonomous driving system, software-based fleet management and operator services for autonomous mobility services. This also shifts the industrial perspective. In Hanover, it is no longer just about assembling a vehicle, but about integrating a complex system of sensors, computing power and software in a way that is suitable for series production. For a long-established high-volume factory, this is precisely where the real challenge lies.
Additional battery expertise for the VWN parent plant
In parallel with vehicle production, the importance of Volkswagen Group Components is also growing in Hanover. This is particularly evident in the local battery system production, which supplies the assembly line in the plant directly and thus benefits from short distances and close integration with vehicle production. Up to now, the focus at the site has mainly been on the production of NMC battery systems. Over the course of the year, however, the area is to be expanded so that further cell chemistries such as LFP can also be processed in future. This not only strengthens Volkswagen’s technological breadth in Hanover, but also increases flexibility within the group network.
According to the company, the maximum production capacity of battery system manufacturing is to increase by 50% as a result of the expansion. In future, four group brands at seven locations are to be supplied from Hanover. Looking ahead, the cell-to-pack design with standard cell will also gain in importance, enabling Volkswagen to further standardise and industrialise its battery systems. For the Hanover site this is a strategically important step. The plant is thus continuing its development from a traditional vehicle factory into a more broadly positioned centre for technology and value creation, where vehicle production, battery expertise and new mobility concepts move closer together.
A plant between history and future
This additional value creation in particular shows how far the Hanover plant has now moved away from the classic role of a pure vehicle production site. The factory remains closely linked to the history of the Bulli, but is increasingly defining its future through technological breadth, industrial flexibility and the ability to integrate new requirements into existing structures. Hanover thus stands as an exemplar of the attempt to gradually lead a plant rich in tradition into the next industrial phase.
