VW boss Herbert Diess: "Don't just offer the transport cover"
Photo: Christophe Gateau / DPA
The car company Volkswagen has to "transform itself from a collection of valuable brands", predominantly with combustion engines, to a digital company that reliably operates millions of networked electric vehicles, the manager said at the virtual general meeting on Wednesday.
VW wants to be constantly connected online with these "mobility devices" in order to keep services - for which customers pay - up to date.
In the further course of 2020 "important decisions" are planned for this.
Volkswagen must not only be able to offer the "transport cover" - that is, the car itself - "but also the brain that safely controls the vehicle with artificial intelligence," explained Diess.
Volkswagen wants to bring cars, brains and services together and offer a single mobility experience of the new era.
Diess made it clear that the transition to a digital company with an operating system for cars developed by the group itself will be much more challenging than the entry into electromobility that has just started with the new ID.3 e-car.
Electric vehicles and driverless car fleets are important components in making VW future-proof.
In a Reuters interview, the CEO said that in view of the upheavals, Volkswagen must ask itself what the transformation means for the individual parts of the group.
"Brands have to measure themselves against the new requirements. Electrification, range, digitization and networking of the vehicle," explained Diess without naming any specific names.
Such statements resonate with the fact that daughters who fail to move away from the combustion engine have no future in the group.
The days of the high-horsepower luxury cars of the Bugatti and Lamborghini brands could be numbered as well as those of the Ducati motorcycles.
It remains to be seen whether VW will achieve its CO2 targets
According to high-ranking managers, Volkswagen intends to improve its strategy in November - especially against the background of the EU's plans for a renewed tightening of the requirements for the emission of climate-damaging carbon dioxide.
Diess told the shareholders on Wednesday that the group was working flat out to achieve the CO2 fleet targets.
This will "certainly be a very strenuous program until the end of the year".
At the same time, this did not rule out the possibility that Volkswagen might not achieve the statutory CO2 targets and would then have to pay a fine.
He said it was essential for the corporation to achieve the goals.
The topic is discussed in the board almost every week.
The company has a chance to avoid the fines.
But it will certainly be "a very strenuous program until the end of the year.
Despite the stresses caused by the corona pandemic, Volkswagen believes that it is still on course for its goals.
According to Diess, the group expects incoming orders and deliveries to be higher than last year in September.
For the remainder of the year, he expects the upward trend to continue.
The VW boss confirmed the prognosis "to remain profitable in the sum of all parts of the business and to achieve a positive operating result in 2020".
Diess, whose contract expires in 2023, is under pressure both internally and externally.
After the largely silent shedding of thousands of jobs through early retirement and the conversion of entire plants to the production of e-cars, he is
slowly
biting
into granite
with a course of further savings at the works council and its powerful chairman
Bernd Osterloh
(64).
On the other hand, the CEO has to prove to shareholders and investors that Volkswagen can make money with e-cars.
In the opinion of bankers and analysts, that alone will not push the market value close to the EUR 200 billion forecast for 2025.
This requires drastic savings and the sale of parts of the company.
In order to enforce this, Diess would need the approval of the works council.
"Volkswagen could reach a valuation of 200 billion euros, but they don't want that," says an investment banker.
"There was a choice between pleasing Osterloh or pleasing the shareholders. They opted for the former."
When asked whether VW could achieve such a rating through organic growth alone, he replied: "No".
la / reuters
