Volkswagen’s chief executive Herbert Diess, the architect of the German carmaker’s multibillion-euro push into electric vehicles, will leave the company within weeks after being forced out by union leaders.
The 63-year-old, who took over in the years following the Dieselgate scandal, will be replaced by Porsche boss and former VW manager Oliver Blume from the start of September. His departure followed a vote by VW’s supervisory board, which is controlled by a loose alliance of workers representatives and the state of Lower Saxony, the company’s second-largest shareholder.
Diess had made it his mission to catch up with Tesla and become the world’s largest electric car producer by the middle of the decade. He oversaw the launch of VW’s first all-electric cars and committed to spend €52bn on developing battery-powered models, while imposing big cost cuts.
But his tenure was marred by repeated clashes with Volkswagen’s powerful German works council, which represents most of its 300,000 workers in the country and occupies 10 of the 20 seats on the company’s supervisory board.
Volkswagen’s works council leader Daniela Cavallo said the group wanted to ensure that “job security and profitability remain equally important corporate goals in the coming years”.
“Our focus as an employee organisation is clear: all our colleagues must be involved. Today’s decisions pay tribute to this.”
The announcement by VW comes just hours after Diess posted a holiday message to workers as they started their summer break.
“I am very satisfied with our performance . . . I have no doubt that we will gain further momentum in the next months,” he wrote.
However his management style, and his propensity for comparing VW unfavourably to electric market-leader Tesla, has been consistently criticised by workers representatives.
In an interview last November, Cavallo also criticised Diess for problems with VW’s software development programme, as well as recent poor performance in China, its largest and most profitable market.