Six thousand people outside one factory gate is not a normal shift change. At Audi’s Neckarsulm plant in southwest Germany, that crowd showed up on July 29th to send Volkswagen a message: this factory, and the cars it builds, shouldn’t just vanish in a spreadsheet of cost savings. It’s a question about the future of big sedans, the brand’s electric halo car, and thousands of high-skill jobs as VW tries to close a painful cost gap with rivals. On paper, there’s a job protection deal running until December 31, 2033 that rules out compulsory redundancies at German Audi sites. In parallel, VW has already agreed to remove around 50,000 jobs in Germany by 2030 and is weighing another wave of cuts, potentially taking total reductions toward 100,000 positions worldwide plus plant shutdowns after 2030.