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Transformer
: Chief Technology Officer
Thomas Schmall
has to
bring
everything new together
Photo: PR
A Saturday afternoon, video conference: Volkswagen Chief Technology Officer
Thomas Schmall
(57), white shirt, dark blue sweater and hair dryer as usual, sitting at home in front of the computer.
"Volkswagen is shitting their pants", a younger member of Tesla boss
Elon Musk
(50) mocked via Twitter after Volkswagen boss
Herbert Diess
(62) warned his top people again about the electric champion from California The pants full, says Schmall now: "We have a clear plan and the size to implement it."
That sounds modest.
But Volkswagen wants to write industrial history and sell six million electric vehicles a year by 2030.
And Thomas Schmall is a very central figure in this gigaproject.
He is responsible for the electric drives of the future models.
Must build the announced battery cell plants, of which not a single one is yet.
And should guarantee the charging stations at which all the e-cars will recharge their batteries in the future.
Even a load management is planned, with which the car, house electricity and the solar system can be controlled.
All-round supply from Wolfsburg.
There is talk of no less than 25 to 30 billion euros that the conversion will require.
"We didn't build the first electric car or the first battery cell," says Schmall.
"But if our plans work, we will clear the way for electric mass mobility; as we did with the Beetle for the combustion engine."
That sounds like a Wolfsburg musk.
But Thomas Schmall is more of an anti-musk.
When he returned to headquarters in early 2015, the previous head of VW do Brasil was ridiculed.
He took over the unpopular "component" and with it around 80,000 employees, some of whom were only allowed to build the engines and gears, plastic parts and seats for their own models because the costs were calculated appropriately. Bosses here were generally seen as rising stars on the works council's ticket While Musk was already showing how electronics can work, Schmall was dealing with very old economy.
It became his first big transformation job.
Since then, he has often thought about how something like this can work.
In essence: "You need a common starting point and a common vision. And you need a high speed, you mustn't let yourself be slowed down again and again."
The Salzgitter example shows how complex this is in reality.
VW is life insurance here and employs around 7,000 people.
Most build engines.
Petrol and diesel.
But the demand for it is falling.
Internal competition produces cheaper;
the number of jobs has already fallen by almost 1,000 compared to 2015.
In 2027, by 2028 at the latest, engine construction could be over here.
Nobody speaks it openly, everyone knows it.
Schmall has to secure the location.
VW laws demand that there be no layoffs.
At least the age structure helps.
"The transformation gives us a great opportunity to keep jobs in Salzgitter," he says.
Whoever leaves will not be replaced.
There should be enough work for the rest.
Initially still in engine production.
Coming soon, for the retrained: in cell production.
Part one of the strategy is classic VW personnel policy, accelerated by instruments such as partial retirement.
Part two focuses on the future.
Volkswagen is the first German group to dare to go it alone to build a battery cell plant.
Cells with a total capacity of 40 gigawatt hours per year are to be produced here in the final stage;
Batteries for around 600,000 cars a year.
Around 4,000 people could work here in the future;
In addition, the headquarters for the holding company, in which the cell activities are bundled, and the development center for battery technology are to be added.
That would be another 1,500 jobs with different qualifications than the engine builder.
"Always provided we do it right," says Schmall.
It sounds like he's warning himself to be careful.
So far, a lot has been going faster than expected.
The German employees of the component already generate 20 percent of sales with electrical parts.
In 2025, Schmall announced, it should be 50 percent.
But that would only be a part of the job.
Tesla started from scratch.
In addition to developing and selling electric cars, has set up its own charging network, sells solar systems for green electricity and even car insurance policies.
"We also have to think in terms of overall systems," says Schmall.
As always at Volkswagen, it starts with the drive.
The electric machine, the pulse inverter, the battery: apart from the software, everything comes from the component in the new VW world;
the contaminated site is now delivering future technology.
And Thomas Schmall is responsible;
a businessman, not an engineer like the Audi boss
Markus Duesmann
(52),
who is responsible for development issues in the group
.
Not everyone in Wolfsburg likes that;
especially since economist Schmall is always starting new initiatives.
He would have liked to order the machines and systems for the cell factories from European suppliers;
but more than five percent of his wishes could not be fulfilled.
So he started a broadcast and called the big industrial groups about collaborations.
Without a partner, he will not be able to build the six cell factories in Europe that are due to go online by 2029.
Volkswagen's stakes in the cell manufacturers Northvolt from Sweden and Gotion from China will not be enough.
The search is ongoing.
And he has to finance the works.
The corporate strategists reckon around five billion euros per gigafactory.
Investors are actually crowding around everything that has to do with electromobility.
Northvolt's valuation is around ten billion euros - although the company is not yet producing battery cells in series.
So the money is there;
it's just outside the group.
There are scenarios circulating about possible IPOs.
Driven by Diess, Schmall and his people planned a double strike, it is said.
Accordingly, they don't just want to list the unit under which the six battery cell plants are bundled.
The business with charging and energy could also be placed on the capital market.
Nothing has been finally decided yet, says Schmall.
It will probably take up to two years before the new companies are founded and are actually ready for the stock market.
But, confirms the VW Transformer, there is great investor interest and good prospects for both business areas.
Group boss Diess has meanwhile already included the business with charging and energy as a profit maker in the presentations that circulated through the company in the summer on Strategy 2030: Fuel is listed with a 5 percent return on sales.
Another job for Schmall.
He sets up collaborations with petrol station operators, he has already won BP, Iberdrola and Enel, others are to follow.
Just like new software for the charging systems, the grid management.
Schmall has to bring everything new together into an overall system.
Look for partners who provide the necessary know-how and get him up to speed.
"The train is out. It can no longer be stopped," he says.
"We have to get to the top."
In ten years, but Thomas Schmall does not say that, Elon Musk should fear Volkswagen.
