For the first time ever, Volkswagen closes a plant in Germany. Live from the UK, this is the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service. I'm Gideon Long. Good morning. Volkswagen has been making cars in Germany for 88 years and in all that time it's never closed a manufacturing plant in its home country.

Until now, later on Tuesday, the last vehicle will roll off the assembly line at VW's

plant in Dresden. It comes as the company is struggling with the transition to electric vehicles.

Alexander Demling, the automotive correspondent at de Spiegel newspaper, is in the German city of Cologne.

Hi, Alexander.

Hi, Gideon.

So the first time ever that Volkswagen has closed a plant in Germany, what does this closure

tell us about the state of Volkswagen at the moment, do you think?

It tells us that Volkswagen needs to save money.

I mean, they agreed last year with the unions that they

would cut 35,000 jobs and close two smaller plans, of which this is in Dresden is one.

And they need to save money because they have a ton of problems right now. They have the Trump

tariffs that hit Audi and Porsche, for example, which are brands of

them. They have problems in China. And also they have problems with the lower adoption of electric cars.

Yeah, that last point. To what extent is that the problem? I mean, it's one of the big problems

they have because they expected a few years ago that they

would be selling many more electric cars all over the world at this point. They invested billions

and billions in these platforms and in these models. And so these investments don't pay back as

much as they expected to. And so they need to adjust and they need to find

cost savings somewhere else. And on the subject of electric cars, we understand that the European

Commission is due to make a big announcement later on Tuesday about its rules on carbon emissions.

At the moment, the idea is that by 2035 Europe's carmakers will no longer be

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