VW May Close Stylish Phaeton Factory

Volkswagen AG will decide today whether to shutter its stylish but underutilized Dresden plant in a move to lower costs, WirtschaftsWoche reports.

The facility currently assembles eight luxury VW Phaeton sedans per week. VW’s supervisory board will consider CEO Matthias Mueller’s recommendation that the next-generation model be built in an existing Audi or Porsche plant, according to the report.

VW opened the “Glaserne Manufaktur” (transparent factory) in 2002—the year the Phaeton debuted—as a futuristic vision of an assembly plant. Inside, glass walls enable customers to watch as their cars are completed.

The original Phaeton, which cost €1 billion to develop, was a pet project of then-CEO Ferdinand Piech. The plainly styled car never achieved its sales targets.

VW sold only about 4,000 of the €76,000 ($81,400) cars in 2014, according to Automotive News Europe. The online newspaper says the company lost about €28,000 per unit sold between 2002 and 2012.