Since Thomas Schäfer came to Volkswagen’s power center in Wolfsburg about a year ago, he has made a lot of effort to appear as an approachable manager. Freshly arrived from the Czech Republic, where he had managed the Škoda brand, he sought contact with the employees of the main VW brand, which he has headed since July. As if on an assembly line, he shot image videos for the social network Linkedin, sometimes with his wife Wendy in a vintage car, then with racing driver Jasmin Preisig, who accelerated a sports version of the small Polo with 207 hp so hard that Schäfer paled in the back seat.
The 150 executives he called together for a video conference last week, on the other hand, experienced a different side of their boss. “We have an acute need for action,” Schäfer made clear to them at the virtual meeting on Tuesday evening, as participants report. With the current rate of return, the brand “simply cannot finance its future”. The tone was haunting and the message clear, they say. For the chronically low-yield brand VW, it’s about the whole thing. It must become significantly more efficient.