VW has drastically exceeded the development budget with the new edition of a legendary series.
Now the internal audit has shed light on the processes - and drawn a terrifying conclusion.
Hanover / Ingolstadt. The Bulli is a cult for VW fans. For Volkswagen itself, the van is one thing above all: a best seller. It has been generating steady profits for more than 70 years. On Thursday (June 10th) the group will present the seventh generation of minibuses, the T7 Multivan. However, this time the margin for the manufacturer will be lower than hoped, because the development costs for the latest Bulli have "gotten out of control". This emerges from an internal audit report from VW Commercial Vehicles (VWN), which the Business Insider (BI) portal reports on.
After that, the VWN Technical Development division spent money on the running belt without making any apparent progress on the project.
In addition, reporting obligations were not complied with and the grievances were not reported.
The expenses for the T7 were therefore almost 200 million euros above the planned budget.
VW T7 celebrates world premiere belatedly: "Bread and butter business left behind"
The focus of the revision report is Alexander H .. The former motorsport chief engineer was hired at VWN in early 2019 as Chief Development Officer, and in mid-2020 he moved on to Audi to promote new electric models as head of the high-tech project "Artemis".
The allegations against H. are serious.
"We never had the impression that he was really interested in the development of commercial vehicles," the portal quotes an unspecified manager.
He left the bread and butter business behind and instead worked on future topics such as autonomous driving.
VW Bulli before world premiere: internal investigation reveals serious grievances
In Ingolstadt, H. was then able to fully focus on his supposed hobby.
However, even in Bavaria, H. was not able to bundle the resources in the group.
Instead, he is regularly infected by developers from other corporate brands.
H. knows "an incredible amount and he lets everyone know that all the time," says a former colleague.
In a statement recently, Audi stated that it wanted to develop the Artemis project further without the engineer.
VWN CFO Holger Kintscher has meanwhile initiated an internal investigation to deal with the Bulli disaster.
We are talking about “leaderless, chaotic conditions”.
H. did not comment on the allegations to the BI.
A spokesman declined to comment to BI.
VW: Bulli successor T7 is finally presented after a change in leadership
Because VWN had to rebuild the T7 organization after H's move to the subsidiary, the start of production of the new Multivan was also delayed. But on Thursday the time has come: The T7 celebrates its world premiere.
