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VW boss Herbert Diess: The representatives of the owner families Porsche and Piëch are also alarmed, it is said
Photo: Nikita Teryoshin/NYT/Redux/laif
There are fears on the VW supervisory board that Europe's largest car company could be left behind by Chinese and Californian rivals in the race for future mobility.
At the May 11 meeting, serious management errors at the IT subsidiary Cariad were discussed.
Group boss Herbert Diess wants to build the company into the largest European software group after SAP.
The model for the conversion is the electric car world market leader Tesla.
However, the supervisors see problems in implementing the ambitious plans.
They demand a revised concept for Cariad by the next meeting in early July, which could also mean an organizational reorganization of the software subsidiary.
Processes should be simplified and decisions accelerated.
From the point of view of the supervisory board, skirmishes between the brands VW, Audi and Porsche had repeatedly caused delays.
The representatives of the owner families Porsche and Piëch are also alarmed, it is said.
It bothers you that the electric version of Porsche's compact SUV Macan is about two years late on the market.
Cariad representatives, on the other hand, complain that they lack the human resources to develop the new software.
Many experts are still busy eliminating the weaknesses of the previous software.
A dozen problems
A study commissioned by Audi by management consultants McKinsey revealed around a dozen problems, insiders report.
The various parties involved in the process find it difficult to communicate with one another.
That jeopardizes the schedules.
The Audi Artemis project will probably not be on the road before 2027.
The autonomously driving e-car was originally supposed to be ready for the market by 2024.
Instead of Artemis, the VW project Trinity should get the first access to the new software and be produced from 2026 onwards.
But even this schedule is shaky, strategists fear.
Solving the problems has been a top priority since the beginning of the year: Group boss Diess has taken over responsibility for Cariad from Audi boss Markus Duesmann.
The supervisory board expects Diess to quickly implement his promise to bring the VW group on an equal footing with Tesla or Google.
Diess does not see itself as being driven, but as a driver.
He had recently stated that Cariad was gaining momentum.
A cooperation with the US chip giant Qualcomm, which supplies Cariad with semiconductors for autonomous driving, should help here.
