Volkswagen Software & EV Transition — Updates From Execs
Summary
The entire thing looks like a full-scale soap opera, and I think there are no better articles in English for understanding what’s going on than this one (which a top VW manager said was exceptionally accurate) and this one, both courtesy Alex Voigt. Alex has been digging to figure out 1) what Volkswagen’s commitment to electric vehicles (EVs) is going to be following the CEO switch and all the Group drama, and 2) how Volkswagen is going to try to solve its software crisis. Regarding #1, Alex unhappily highlighted this quote from the new VW Brand CEO, Ralf Brandstätter, who was COO from the end of June 2019 until his recent promotion: “We have always said that in the long term we will continue to have different types of drive trains equally in our product line. ) Regarding #2, Volkswagen’s software challenges and deep position behind Tesla*, Volkswagen’s board member in charge of IT, Christian Senger, was quoted in a German newspaper today stating that Volkswagen is focusing on developing its own software (which I already wrote about at length), is investing €7 billion into that (that’s a lot of money), all new VW models should run on that by 2025, and Tesla is Volkswagen’s guiding reference on that topic (quite a departure from how VW execs talked about Tesla a few years ago). VW’s big challenge right now is making sure it puts the right people in place to develop this software, has the right company structure to do so, and doesn’t get lost down too many rabbit holes in the process.