VW's Diess faces no-confidence vote

[dan_b]

Oh dear, are the fossils at VW going to ditch Diess's drive to BEV?

https://electrek.co/2021/11/04/vw-ceo-i ... tric-fast/

[Mart]

Fingers crossed for Diess. He's already survived one of these a couple of years ago when he challenged VW to back him and his desire to move to BEV's faster, or get rid of him. Now they think he's too friendly with Elon, and upgrading VWG production will cost jobs ....... but going against BEV's, and not milking Elon for any free advice they can get, could be catastrophic for VW/VWG.

It's years ago now, but a great analogy was given on the Tesla Times News channel - They suggested that legacy automakers had gotten their leg caught in a bear trap in the middle of the woods. If they stay there, they will slowly die. Their only hope of survival is to cut off their own leg and try to make it out before they bleed to death, and the longer they spend thinking about it, the worse their chances become.

I think VWG have done the right thing, and Diess is dragging them kicking and screaming through the woods, but if they slow down now ..... hmm!

[Stinsy]

Fingers crossed for Diess. He's already survived one of these a couple of years ago when he challenged VW to back him and his desire to move to BEV's faster, or get rid of him. Now they think he's too friendly with Elon, and upgrading VWG production will cost jobs ....... but going against BEV's, and not milking Elon for any free advice they can get, could be catastrophic for VW/VWG.

It's years ago now, but a great analogy was given on the Tesla Times News channel - They suggested that legacy automakers had gotten their leg caught in a bear trap in the middle of the woods. If they stay there, they will slowly die. Their only hope of survival is to cut off their own leg and try to make it out before they bleed to death, and the longer they spend thinking about it, the worse their chances become.

I think VWG have done the right thing, and Diess is dragging them kicking and screaming through the woods, but if they slow down now ..... hmm!

I agree with all of that. But it seems to me that VAG is moving pretty slowly! When I bought my Diesel A6 in 2017 lots of people expressed surprise that I was buying a diesel. The received wisdom was that BEVs were here and my A6 would be worth what it weighed in a few years. As it happened it depreciated by only 35% from new to 3-years old. And Audi inexplicably released a new ICEV A6. The same is true across all VW brands. They're releasing and updating their ICEV range all the time. Why put such vast resources into designing new ICEVs, with all the associated tooling up?

Why not say: We'll continue to manufacture ICEVs until demand dwindles but all new models will be fully-electric?

To hear that the CEO of VW is facing defenestration for "moving too quickly towards BEVs" is astonishing. He should be under pressure for moving too slowly!