Elisabeth Behrmann

Volkswagen AG is seeking to create buzz months before deliveries start for its first ID. electric car, following the footsteps of Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk, whose promotion of the Model 3 generated reservation lines around the block.

Volkswagen AG has started testing five electric and highly-automated versions of its Golf compact cars on the streets of Hamburg, Germany.

Ford Motor Co. said it will cut thousands of jobs, weed out slow-selling variants and potentially close entire factories in Europe, as the carmakers’s global cost-cutting drive targets a region that has been a drag on earnings for years.

Over the past three decades, the global auto industry has gotten, well, more global. Manufacturers built scores of factories outside their home countries to reduce exposure to currency swings, take advantage of cheaper labor and manufacture cars closer to buyers.