Artemis, Cariad, Trinity. With this trio, former CEO Herbert Diess (64) wanted to put the Volkswagen Group on the road to success. Diess was a master of preaching who wanted to get everything done at once. With Trinity, VW should launch an entirely new electric propulsion platform. With the Artemis project, its luxury subsidiary Audi has taken the lead in the development of autonomous vehicles, the first of which should be the all-electric successor to the Audi A8 in 2024. An agile Artemis-GmbH in line with the rather slow group structures should push it forward like a start-up at Audi.
Both would be founded as a software company by its subsidiary Cariad. Because: Diess saw its software platform as the key to competing with US electric pioneer Tesla, which has long designed its models around a central on-board computer and VW still manages dozens of control units per car.
A sense of reality rather than castles in the air
But at the end of July, the VW supervisory board pulled the emergency brake: that was the end of Diess, who never really gained the trust of the VW workforce. Oliver Blume (54), currently head of Porsche, has been head of the group since 1 September. And it’s already cleared up after 100 days in the office. Rather than pushing the lofty plans of its predecessor in one way or another and thus creating similar problems as, for example, at the launch of ID.3, it brings them back with a greater sense of reality. Planned as a stylish four-door, it reimagines the Trinity as an SUV – rather than 2026, so it could only arrive in 2030. With the delay, the planned new Trinity plant will likely be obsolete, as the anticipated reduction in combustion engine production will free up space at the main plant in Wolfsburg.
Instead of the Artemis, Audi is working on two all-electric models, Landjet and Landyacht, as future luxury cruise ships without autonomous driving functions. These were newly developed by subsidiary VW Commercial Vehicles. Definitely an advantage for later marketing: Driverless self-driving commercial vehicles can save companies costs and can therefore be economically attractive. And finally, Cariad was reworked. As reported by “Automobilwoche”, Blume now wants to explore partnerships instead of doing everything on its own.
cooperation instead of conflict
Blume reduced the size of the group’s board of directors from twelve to nine on the first day of work. At the end of December, Blume replaced the board member responsible for the acquisition, making Michael Mauer (60), Porsche’s head of design, head of design for the group. Blume also relies on a new collaborative management culture, sees himself as a team player and should be like his first name with Daniela Cavallo (47), the strong chairman of the works council from the very beginning. Unlike his predecessor, Diess, who repeatedly pitted Cavallo against himself with faintly expressed speculation about plant shutdowns and layoffs.
His previous work at Porsche shows that Blume’s approach can lead to success. Just 81 days after its IPO, the sports car maker has been listed as one of 40 companies on the leading German stock index DAX since Dec. Looks like someone did something right.