VW boss Herbert Diess steers ID.3 to Italy: When car bosses take the wheel

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Herbert Diess at the wheel of a VW ID.3 (at the IAA 2019 auto show in Frankfurt)

Herbert Diess has had turbulent weeks. Software problems with the new Golf, delays with the ID.3 electric car, the disclosure of confidential information to the press - things were so hot in Wolfsburg that the VW CEO was apparently on the verge of being kicked out. Not surprisingly, in an interview with the FAZ at the end of July, Diess said: "I'm looking forward to my vacation. Taking two or three weeks away is definitely good for everyone."

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Instead of actually taking a break, the 61-year-old threw himself into a PR campaign: He started his vacation with the VW electric car ID.3, which was prominently documented on social media. This follows a familiar pattern from car bosses. They get behind the wheel of one of their vehicles in order to document with great fanfare what is actually taken for granted - namely trust in the in-house models. Here are some examples of such actions:

On vacation in an electric car

The driver: VW CEO Herbert Diess

The vehicle: VW ID.3 Pro Performance, 150 kW output (202 PS)

The journey: From Munich to Malcesine on Lake Garda it is around 400 kilometers. VW boss Herbert Diess and his daughter Caro have now covered this distance with the new VW ID.3 electric car - which will only hit the streets as a series model from September. "The data from my trip will be recorded and evaluated," said Diess in his profile on the LinkedIn career platform. "The tour is officially a test drive. Means: The boss tests himself". Although VW specifies a range of 420 kilometers for the car, whose battery has a storage capacity of 58 kWh, Diess took a charging break on the burner according to his online logbook and complained that "the charging stations are not displayed accurately by the navigation system". The remark may have earned some programmers at VW a few hours of overtime. Even the "skip or toggle forwards music should be done with the arrow key up and not down," complained the boss. The tour is polarizing on social media: On the one hand, Diess is praised as "someone who has understood it"; on the other hand, the comparatively short trip is branded as "total rubbish".

The conclusion: Whether Diess' vacation trip will be a promotional coup is open - because the return trip to Munich is still pending.

Request for billions in aid

The drivers: GM boss Rick Wagoner, Chrysler boss Robert Nardelli, Ford boss Alan Mullaly

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US auto bosses Rick Wagoner, Robert Nardelli, Alan Mullaly and Ron Gettelfinger, head of the US auto workers' union, at the second congressional hearing in Washington. The bosses of the big three car companies had come to this meeting in cars - and not in the company jets as at the meeting two weeks earlier.

The vehicle: sedans from US manufacturers GM, Chrysler and Ford, the exact models have not survived

The journey: It's around 850 miles from the US automotive metropolis Detroit to the capital Washington. Usually the bosses of the three big manufacturers GM, Ford and Chrysler travel there to appointments by company jet. But in autumn 2008 nothing was normal anymore. The situation of the American auto industry at the time after the collapse of the US financial industry was like a journey into the abyss. The three big corporations General Motors (GM), Chrysler and Ford were on the verge of bankruptcy and needed a total of 34 billion US dollars in government aid. The bosses of the big three had flown in for the first hearing before the Congress - and thus demonstrated a lack of sensitivity. At the second appointment, Rick Wagoner (GM), Robert Nardelli (Chrysler) and Alan Mullaly (Ford) had learned something new, they covered the distance in cars. "Did you drive yourself this time?" Asked Senator Richard Shelby smugly. "I drove with a colleague and we took turns," explained Rick Wagoner (GM). Chrysler boss Robert Nardelli said he left at 5:30 in the morning and Ford boss Alan Mullaly also said he had come by car.

The bottom line: The penitential gesture had an effect, the US government finally granted the car companies state money.

In the one-liter car to hand over the baton

The driver: VW CEO Ferdinand Piëch

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The photo shows the former VW CEO Ferdinand Piëch on arrival with the one-liter car in Hamburg. Piëch drove the prototype from Wolfsburg to the Hanseatic city in April 2002 - with an average consumption of 0.99 liters of diesel per 100 kilometers.

The vehicle: VW one-liter car, single-cylinder diesel engine, two-seater, prototype

The journey: From Wolfsburg to Hamburg it is around 230 kilometers on the motorway. Ferdinand Piëch covered the distance on April 14, 2002, by crawling alone, in pouring rain. The reason: the next day he was to give up the chairmanship of the VW Group and he wanted to be remembered above all as a technician who brought lightweight aluminum, TDI engines and all-wheel drive to the automotive world - and the first one-liter car. In this very vehicle, a million dollar, two-seater prototype with a streamlined carbon body and a single-cylinder diesel engine, Piëch lurched north. The car in the form of a giant cigar on wheels only consumed 0.99 liters per 100 kilometers on the journey. On the day of the general meeting, Piëch drove the car again - this time with Bernd Pischetsrieder as a passenger and only the short distance from the Hamburg hotel "Vier Jahreszeiten" to the congress center, where 3,500 shareholders and several hundred journalists were waiting.

The conclusion: The pictures of Ferdinand Piëch with a scarf and hat in the unheated one-liter car (for reasons of efficiency) stayed in the memory as desired - and so did the fuel-saving record.

Supercharger advertising tour with the whole family

The driver: Tesla boss Elon Musk, also in the car: his then wife Talulah Riley and his five sons

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Elon Musk in front of a Tesla Model S. The head of the Californian electric car manufacturer started in March 2014 with his wife and five sons on a trip from Los Angeles to New York in such a model.

The vehicle: Tesla Model S (a seven-seater SUV)

The trip: The classic road trip through the USA is from coast to coast - Tesla boss Elon Musk announced such a trip under special conditions in autumn 2013. "I'm planning a road trip from Los Angeles to New York, a total of 3,200 miles in six days. With the whole family - this will be an adventure." The trip with Riley and his five children should take place in spring 2014. Musk wanted to draw attention to the increasingly dense network of superchargers - the fast charging stations free of charge for Tesla customers - that allow long-distance trips with the electric car without any problems. In fact, there are several tweets and photos from the "Great American (Electric) Road Trip" on Musk and his wife's Twitter accounts, but all of them are dated March 31, 2014. In the last entry of the day, Riley writes that her husband drives the Tesla just down a mountain through a blizzard - on summer tires. Then the track is lost. Whether the family drove on and remained silent, broke off the trip or had to break it off, remains to be seen. A Tesla spokesman initially only announced on request that he had no further information about the mysterious road trip.

The bottom line: Something went wrong on this trip - at least the communication. In any case, the erratic Twitter entries do not inspire confidence in the Model X and the supercharger network at the time. However, the trip did not cause much damage in the long term, the company's share price has multiplied in the years since.

Secret trip through the Grand Duchy

The driver: Bertha Benz (and probably her son Eugen)

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To mark the centenary of the world's first long-distance car drive by Bertha Benz and her sons from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back, the Daimler Group had events from 1888 re-enacted.

The vehicle: Benz Patent Motor Car number 3

The journey: From Mannheim to Pforzheim, that's about 100 kilometers. At dawn on August 5, 1888, Bertha Benz and her two sons Eugen, 15, and Richard, 13. Benz was an investor, but not an official company director in the young automotive industry. According to Daimler, the trip was the world's first long-distance journey in an automobile. It was intended to increase the acceptance of the new patent motor vehicle, which went down in history as the first modern car. The three allegedly left their husband and father, Carl Benz, the vehicle's designer, only a note on the kitchen table: "We went to see grandma in Pforzheim." She came from Pforzheim, so she was familiar with the route there. But the three-wheeled vehicle with a single-cylinder engine twitched again and again. Sometimes the clogged fuel line had to be cleaned with a hat pin, sometimes a garter belt had to be used to insulate a worn ignition cable. The trio stopped in front of the pharmacy in Wiesloch to refuel. There was ligroin there, a benzine for cleaning stubborn stains that could be used as fuel.

The conclusion: In the short term, the trip was probably a failure. If Bertha Benz wanted to popularize her husband's invention by taking a trip to her hometown, it did not succeed immediately. After the journey, the Grand Duchy of Baden issued a general ban on motor vehicles on public roads. However, Mercedes-Benz still uses the extraordinary journey at every opportunity as evidence of the company's important role in automotive history. In the long term, the trip was very worthwhile.