Herbert Diess: VW boss should also be supreme Audi controller

04/15/2018

Herbert Diess VW boss should also be the top Audi controller

DPA

“I like a lot of work”: Herbert Diess

The new Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess is equipped with great power. Now he should also be supreme overseer at Audi. Some warn already before this office accumulation. In addition, a supervisory board recommends Diess to pay more attention to the diesel drivers.

According to information from group circles, the new Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess will also take over the chairmanship of the Supervisory Board of the subsidiary Audi. The industry magazine “Automobilwoche” first reported on this plan. An Audi spokesman said Saturday only: “The Supervisory Board will decide on its next meeting on 8 May on the presidency.”

From Volkswagen initially no opinion was to receive. It is a tradition for the Wolfsburg-based carmaker that the CEOs are also chief inspectors at Audi.

The previous VW brand manager Diess has replaced not only CEO Matthias Müller on the chief post. He is now also responsible for the new brand group “volume”, which includes the VW cars in addition to the VW commercial vehicles, Seat and Skoda, as well as for research and development in the Group.

According to “Automobilwoche”, his power of power meets with skepticism and evokes memories of his predecessor Martin Winterkorn. “This must not be allowed to worry about the last screw like Winterkorn, which cost a lot of time, money and nerves back then”, a high-ranking VW development expert is quoted as saying. Diess explained according to the paper on the topic: “I like a lot of work.”

Supervisory Board: VW has more to worry about worries of diesel owners

The major VW shareholder, the state of Lower Saxony, assumes that the carmaker will become more mobile as a result of the conversion. Lower Saxony’s Minister of Economics Bernd Althusmann (CDU), who also sits on the Supervisory Board, told the “Deutschlandfunk”: “I think that it was something of a liberation to rearrange two and a half years after the diesel affair structures.” VW was in its previous structure “very broad” had been. The topic networking of vehicles about to settle with the new CEO, makes sense.

But Althusmann also emphasized that Volkswagen and other manufacturers had to worry even more than before about the concerns of owners of old diesel cars. The customers should not pay for the mistakes of the corporations.

Of course, there is no need to show a little more willingness to seek solutions together with the federal government and the federal states, for example, when it comes to funds that industry and federal government should pay for. ” Foreign carmakers do not want to participate in the fund.

In general, the problems of diesel drivers would have to be taken much more seriously. “I can understand the outrage of many people,” he said. Possible hardware upgrades – rejected by the automakers – require further, more rigorous testing: “What does it actually cost? It’s also related to approval processes, engine effects, warranties.”

Rei / Reuters / dpa

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