Search Results Found For: "Herbert Diess"

Will Herbert Diess’s departure damage Volkswagen’s EV strategy?

Volkswagen Group Chief Executive Herbert Diess will leave the company, to be replaced by Porsche Chief Executive and former VW head Oliver Blume, at the start of September. Diess’s departure follows a vote by VW’s supervisory board, which includes representatives of employee organizations and the state of Lower Saxony, the company’s second-largest shareholder. The 20-seat… Read more »

A lesson in innovation: VW’s Herbert Diess invites Tesla’s Elon Musk to an internal conference

A few weeks ago, Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess called 120 top-level executives to company HQ for a crisis meeting, at which he announced a series of measures to help his company catch up with Tesla. More recently, Diess went a step further, inviting Tesla CEO Elon Musk to address 200 Volkswagen executives via a… Read more »

“A sad state of affairs”: VW Group CEO Herbert Diess calls out shortcomings of IONITY charging network

Taking a road trip in an EV is no longer a novelty, but it’s still an instructive (and hopefully, fun) thing to do, and the EV road trip story remains an online literary staple. It’s especially interesting when an exec at an automaker takes a trip in one of their company’s new EV models—and even… Read more »

VW board backs CEO Diess’s ambitious electrification plans

Within the executive suites at every legacy automaker, there are pro-EV and anti-EV factions, which continually strive for mastery, like Zoroastrianism’s Asha and Druj. Now Volkswagen Group Chairman Herbert Diess, a staunch EV advocate, has apparently won a major boardroom battle, clearing the way for him to proceed with his progressive plans for the German… Read more »

What does President Biden’s support for unions mean for the EV industry?

The relationship between labor unions and e-mobility is a complex one. In Germany, fears that the transition to EVs would result in job losses contributed to the fall of VW CEO Herbert Diess. Here in the US, EVs were a major issue in the recent United Auto Workers strike—autoworkers feared that the Big Three would… Read more »

Ford CEO talks candidly about Ford’s problems with its Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning

Automakers are in the midst of what is arguably the largest technological shift since the birth of the industry, and it’s inevitable that they’re going to have problems. Despite their deep pockets and vast expertise in manufacturing, legacy brands are still struggling to catch up with industry gadfly Tesla—but as VW’s former CEO Herbert Diess… Read more »

New VW boss seems lukewarm on EVs, wants to bet on synthetic fuels

Former Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess was a hero to pro-EV activists. He was less popular with certain factions within the company, including the powerful Works Council (to say nothing of the stock market), and in 2022, he was forced out, to be replaced by Oliver Blume. At the time, we wondered whether Diess’s departure… Read more »

Volkswagen works with Canadian government to develop North American battery supply chain

The Volkswagen Group and the Government of Canada have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) under which they will investigate opportunities for Canada to contribute to VW’s global and regional battery supply chains. PowerCo, VW’s newly founded battery company, will establish a new liaison office in Canada, and will have a central role in the… Read more »

Ford cuts 3,000 jobs, citing shift to EVs

Many have predicted that the shift to EVs will lead to job losses in the automotive industries, as EVs are simpler to assemble than legacy vehicles. The latest news from Ford appears to bear out this inconvenient truth—the automaker has announced that it will cut a total of 3,000 salaried and contract jobs, mostly in… Read more »

VW to replace MEB and PPE electric platforms with new Scalable Systems Platform

Volkswagen plans to introduce a new EV, the ID.4 sedan, which is expected to go into production in 2026, and will be built on a new platform. VW’s new Scalable Systems Platform (SSP) is a skateboard-style architecture that Volkswagen Group Chairman Herbert Diess says will replace the existing Modularen Elektrik Baukasten (MEB) structure as well… Read more »