In the traditional car camp, the person who embraces the intelligent electrification revolution most actively has left his position.
It all happened quickly, and a Bloomberg report detailed the whole process.
On the weekend of July 16 and 17, eight members of Volkswagen's supervisory board decided on the fate of Herbert Dies before the summer vacation, and this time the atmosphere was different from before, and the last barrier of Diss, support from the Porsche-Pierch family, had collapsed.
On 20 July, the Supervisory Board decided that Porsche CEO Oliver Blume would be replaced by Diess as CEO of the Volkswagen Group.
At noon on July 21, German time, Dies was informed of the above news, after a few hours after he visited Volkswagen's factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and proposed a series of measures for Volkswagen USA.
Undes was too late to be shocked, he had only 24 hours to respond, and after consulting with legal counsel, Dies decided to leave, informing Hans Dieter Poetsch, chairman of Volkswagen's supervisory board, on July 22.
At 4:30 p.m. on July 22, 20 members of the Supervisory Board met and unanimously approved the decision to remove Dis.
At 6 p.m. on the same day, Volkswagen released the bomb to the outside world, and the whole process was completed in one go, and the sudden change made the industry stunned.
"Foreigner" Dies
The defeat of Dis is that this "foreigner" has no roots in Wolf Castle.
The veteran, who has worked at BMW for 19 years, has faced an extremely difficult road to reform since joining the Volkswagen Group, and when the Porsche-Pierch family ran out of patience, it was the day he left.
The Porsche-Pierch family, which owns more than half of the Volkswagen Group's voting rights and 31.4 percent of Volkswagen's shares, has helped secure a contract extension until October 2025.
The sudden change in attitude of the Porsche-Pierch family was at the heart of the event.
According to the Financial Times, according to a person close to shareholders, in recent weeks, the Porsche-Pierch family has come to believe that Dis's contract extension was a "mistake".
In June, Dees spoke more gently with workers, telling employees he believed Volkswagen would surpass Tesla in electric vehicle sales by 2025, noting that Musk had recently encountered difficulties in factory capacity.
But "we're starting to realize he's not really changed," the person added.
Speculations about the Porsche-Pierch family's "change of heart" include that Dies' (strong) personality led to repeated conflicts within Volkswagen, and that he failed to address software issues that led to delays in new models, which weakened their confidence that Dies could settle the problem.
In an interview with the American technology media "The Verge" earlier this year, Diess said that compared with the GREATer autonomy of the CEO of the American company, Diess's decision-making in the public "needs a lot of adjustments and discussions, and if you want to get your plan approved, you must consider the company's future common interests." ”
Diess needs to spend a lot of time convincing others and maneuvering among various interest groups when Pushing forward his ideas at Volkswagen, but the straight Dees is obviously not suitable for this.
To the outside world, Diess is a charismatic CEO who dares to break the mold and embrace the new world, but within the public, these have become his shortcomings.
The Financial Times also detailed Dis's "indictments," including:
- Diess is particularly close to Tesla, Musk wanted to give him the position of Tesla CEO before Dees wanted to join Volkswagen in 2015, and Diess "bragged" about Tesla many times during his tenure as Volkswagen CEO;
- Dies is more focused on Wall Street than on employees, and can't empathize with colleagues when making decisions;
- Clashing with the Labor Commission, in terms of cost cuts, Diess wants to take rough measures such as layoffs.
Diess has made too many enemies within Volkswagen, and its conflict with unions is well known, and Daniela Cavallo, president of volkswagen unions, said externally after Diess was "deposed", "The Volkswagen Group wants to be at the forefront of the great changes in the automotive industry, and at the same time, job security and profitability are equally important goals in the next few years." Our point is clear: all colleagues are to go along, and today's decision contributed to that. ”
Even in the Volkswagen Group press release dated July 22, the last sentence reads: Aobomo will continue to promote the transformation of the group together with the entire group management board, based on a leadership culture that puts teamwork first.
Even though Dees revealed in his expression that he had tried to maneuver among the various forces, he was labeled as "not understanding teamwork".
In addition to internal struggles, another main thread in the Discos departure storm is the software problem, which is also the main means used by his hostile forces to attack him.
In December 2019, the German magazine "Manager" broke the news that volkswagen ID.3 had a large number of software problems; in February of the following year, the magazine broke the news again that the delivery of ID.3 would be delayed by 3-12 months due to serious software problems.
Since then, rumors about Dees's dismissal have begun to rise and fall.
In July 2020, Christian Senger, the former head of MEB platform research and development, had to resign as CEO of Car.Software because of software problems with ID.3 and Golf 8; previously, In June, Diess had just been forced to resign as CEO of the Volkswagen passenger car brand.
Although Volkswagen has since solved the software problem, the sales of the ID. series have not been outstanding, especially in the Chinese market, which has not performed as expected, daniela Cavallo believes that Volkswagen has failed to meet the preferences of local consumers, such as providing in-car karaoke.
On January 1, 2022, Diess took full responsibility for the software division CARIAD (formerly Car.Software).
In May 2022, Volkswagen's Supervisory Board asked management to come up with a more robust plan for CARIAD.
Daniela Cavallo complained about Volkswagen's poor CARIAD performance, forcing Audi and Porsche to rely on their own software systems while waiting for the group's technology to catch up with other competitors.
Foreign media recently reported that the CARIAD progress is seriously less than expected, and seriously drag down the group's new car listing plan, Porsche Macan, Audi Q6 e-tron, Bentley's electric new car, have been affected by software delays.
Executives at Porsche and Audi were disappointed by the software delays, porsche had already started pre-series production of the electric Macan at its factory in Leipzig, and Audi planned to start pre-production of the Q6 e-tron in Inglestadt by the end of this year, but the problem was that the software version of these electric vehicles had not yet been finalized.
Some foreign media even said on Twitter that CARIAD's poor performance was the last nail nailed to the "coffin board" of Dis.
Successor Oliver Blume
The choice of Oliver Blume looks like a public pullback to the aggressive route of the past few years.
In the words of foreign media, Obomu is a typical "car guy".
Obermou was born in Brunswick, Lower Saxony, Germany, about 30 km from Volkswagen's headquarters in Wolfsburg. Obermou joined the Volkswagen Group in 1994 as an intern under the Audi brand and has since spent time at Audi, SEAT and Volkswagen.
In 2009, Obermou became head of production planning for the Volkswagen brand; In 2013, he became a member of the Board of Directors of Porsche; In 2015, he became CEO of Porsche.
Obermu is passionate about football, playing the role of defender (scavenger) in the team, he is considered to have team spirit, at the same time, his management skills are widely recognized, and he is good at gaining the support of vested interests before acting.
According to the German magazine Manager, Obermou maintains a good relationship with the Porsche-Pierch family and employee representatives. Porsche-Pierch family spokesman Wolfgang Porsche and Hans Michel Piëch said in a statement that "Oliver Blume has been a clear trust from us for many years. ”
An important achievement of Obermou is that Porsche launched the Taycan under its rule, which is more popular than the Porsche 911, and at the same time, the model has achieved stable profits, which is relatively rare in the electric models of traditional car companies.
In terms of electrification and intelligence, Obomu's views on external output are not many, but they are more representative.
Obermou said in early July, "In addition to the development of electric vehicles, Porsche will continue to produce internal combustion engine vehicles." Porsche will focus on two E's, the electric vehicle (e-mobility) and the synthetic fuel (e-fuel), while continuing to develop modern internal combustion engine cars. ”
Within 24 hours of Obermu being announced as Volkswagen CEO, Die Anstalt, a talk show on ZDF, accused him of colluding with Christian Lindner, chairman of the Liberal Democrats and German Finance Minister, to add e-fuel to the German government's alliance deal.
The alliance agreement "works to ensure that vehicles using electric fuels can also be registered after the ban on the internal combustion engine in 2035." ”
e-fuel is a compromise between fuel vehicles and electric vehicles, which can obtain hydrogen by electrolyzing water and synthesize it with carbon dioxide through catalytic reactions, which can provide high octane numbers, close to traditional fossil fuels, but pollution-free. Due to the need for electrolytic hydrogen, e-fuel is only climate-friendly when produced with green electricity.
e-fuel not only protects the industrial chain of traditional fuel vehicles, but also complies with the requirements of environmental protection regulations to a certain extent.
Audi has been developing e-diesel, e-gasoline projects; At the end of 2020, Porsche announced its investment in electric fuel.
After Diess left school, Simone Peter, president of the German Renewable Energy Federation (BEE), slammed the E-Fuels route on Twitter, saying that "Porsches and e-fuels are on the wrong path, planes need them (referring to e-fuels), but cars don't." ”
In terms of intelligence, Obermou makes even fewer noises to the outside world.
Obermou held a meeting with Apple executives in March to discuss a series of potential projects when news came out that Porsche would build a car with Apple.
In June this year, Apple released the next generation of CarPlay, which will be installed on the partner's model at the end of 2023, porsche and Audi appeared on Apple's cooperation list.
Judging by the few pieces of information mentioned above, Obermou does not seem to be willing to take an overly radical approach to change, preferring compromises and reconciling interests.
In addition, Porsche plans to IPO in the fourth quarter of this year, or will become the largest IPO in the history of the car, while Volkswagen's intelligent electrification transformation has also entered a critical stage, and software issues are unresolved. At this point in time, it is not a good choice for Obermou to bear these two burdens.
Dies's "Legacy"
Did The Outsider Dees accomplish his historical mission?
Electrification and intelligent transformation are the two most important measures completed by Diess during his tenure.
Power DAY in the first half of 2021 and NEW AUTO in the second half of 2021, Diess announced Volkswagen's grand plans for the next decade.
In terms of batteries, Volkswagen has planned a battery capacity of 240 GWh in Europe, and Volkswagen has announced on July 7, 2022 that it will establish a battery joint venture with partners PowerCo, which plans to invest more than 20 billion euros by 2030, and is expected to generate more than 20 billion euros in sales per year and create 20,000 jobs in Europe.
Diess recalled that he visited CATL on behalf of BMW in 2012 or 2013, when CATL was still a small company that had just been established, and Diess persuaded Zeng Yuqun to bet on car power batteries and give it an order.
Facing the electrification transition, Dies believes that Europe is ambitious to achieve 50% penetration of electric vehicles by 2030, and if it maintains Volkswagen's 20% market share in the European market, it will need 6 battery factories, which must be built and operated by 2027 and 2028, while 30 battery factories will be needed for the whole of Europe.
But the regret is that Diess can only persuade the Ningde era to expand production capacity, other first-line power battery companies are not moved, Volkswagen has to do it themselves, PowerCo is the embodiment of this plan landing.
In terms of intelligence, things are a little more complicated.
Diess believes that 90% of the differentiation, competitiveness and customer experience of future automotive products will rely on software, which will dominate the cars of the future. In an interview with The Verge, he said that today's cars are 10 times more complex than smartphones, and there is no really big company that can have excellent car software and hardware at the same time, and it is not easy to obtain these two capabilities at the same time.
These capabilities are now scattered among automakers, suppliers and sub-suppliers, Diess said. All automakers are struggling with software; At the same time, the complexity of the car is also a difficult task for software companies. No company can do a good job of combining hard and soft, except that Tesla has some lead. He believes it will take a few more years for Volkswagen to transform into a software-driven company.
In February 2019, Volkswagen established the software division Car. software。 On March 26, 2021, Car. Software became CARIAD and began operating independently.
In terms of business, CARIAD covers E³ electronic architecture, VW. OS Os, VW. AC car cloud, self-developed chips, autonomous driving, etc., almost all intelligent services.
Volkswagen originally hoped to complete the new unified architecture in 2025, the underlying hardware platform is SSP, and the use of Volkswagen standard batteries; In the software segment, the E³ electronic architecture has been upgraded to version 2.0 and Volkswagen's self-developed VW.OS and VW.AC, and for autonomous driving, the Audi Artemis project, which is scheduled to be mass-produced in 2025, will first use the ADAS/autonomous driving stack developed by CARIAD.
In July, CARIAD held a rather mysterious meeting to discuss the future direction of the Volkswagen Group's software development, and at that time seemed to come up with some positive answers.
CARIAD CEO Dirk Hilgenberg said after the meeting that "the era of unanimous decisions is over" and that CARIAD can decide independently what to do, rather than working with the approval of multiple executives of the Volkswagen Group.
He metaphorically said that CARIAD would be "in the driver's position" and the Volkswagen Group would be in the "co-pilot position", and although the vehicle was started by the driver (CARIAD), they had better get the consent of the passengers (the Volkswagen Group) and no longer have to ask the children (Porsche and Audi) for their opinions.
In terms of chips, CARIAD has also planned a series of semiconductor strategies, of which self-developed chips are an important part.
Last year, Diess proposed that Volkswagen should develop its own chips, and some time ago it intensively visited executives from TSMC, GlobalFoundries and Qualcomm to discuss semiconductor technology and supply chain.
On July 20, 2022, Volkswagen and ST announced that Volkswagen's software division CARIAD and ST will jointly develop automotive SoCs for connectivity, energy management and OTA functions, aimed at the Volkswagen Group's next-generation models, which will be built on Volkswagen's unified and scalable software platform. In the future, the two companies will also jointly develop high-performance semiconductors.
In terms of autonomous driving, CARIAD is cooperating with Qualcomm, Bosch, QNX and other companies to try to build a self-developed autonomous driving system.
To sum up, POWER DAY and NEW AUTO, PowerCo and CARIAD, two launches and two subsidiaries, are the most important works of Diess in the CEO career of Volkswagen.
effect
In the traditional automotive industry, Diess and volkswagen he led are the most radical in the transformation of intelligent electrification.
The dismissal of Dies has in a certain sense dampened the enthusiasm of traditional Automakers in the process of transformation, and the momentum of the reformists has been suppressed in the short term, and the conservatives may make a comeback.
The microclimate within the enterprise has brewed various personnel changes, and what determines the fate of the enterprise is often the general climate outside the enterprise.
At this moment, the wave of intelligent electrification is sweeping the automotive industry, the global intelligent electric vehicle industry is still in full swing, and whoever makes slow progress is counted as a step backwards.
For volkswagen group, its electrification investment and layout is relatively perfect, the story of PowerCo will continue, and the key to the success or failure of Volkswagen's transformation is still in digital transformation, which is also a difficult time for all traditional car companies to overcome.
Whether it is to build a software-driven product or a software-driven company, Dies has failed, the latter is much more difficult than the former, and can be the support of the former.
Therefore, the next trend of CARIAD is particularly noteworthy, which is the most important window for the outside world to observe Volkswagen's digital transformation.
Wolfsburg after tonight may be even more turbulent.
For all traditional car companies, this may be just the beginning, not the end, of turmoil.