Volkswagen
Christian Senger at the L.A. Autoshow in 2017
“We are the first car company to do this,” announced Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess (60), not without pride, when he announced to the World Economic Forum in Davos that the Company expanded its board by adding a software development post, The candidate for the post has apparently been found – in his own ranks.
According to information from manager-magazin.de Christian Senger (44) to take over the new department. He is the head of the e-Mobility series and, as the new CEO, is not only concerned with software development for the VW brand, but is also responsible for these tasks for the entire Group. First, the specialist magazine “carIT” reported on it. The appointment must be approved by the Supervisory Board.
This had already announced in the said Davos that the company wants to separate the responsibilities for software and hardware development in the automotive business. In the future, the car will largely be a software product and the “most complex Internet product out there”.
The networking of the many software units in the car is now the most demanding task in vehicle development. Volkswagen therefore wants to simplify the software architecture in the vehicles. With a combination of systems and the strict separation of software and hardware, the costs for Volkswagen passenger cars are expected to fall by a mid three-digit million euro amount.
As head of the e-Mobility series, Senger has been responsible since 2016 for the development of the modular electrical construction kit MEB, on which the new E-cars of the ID family stand. He started his career in the automotive industry in 1997 at BMW, where he was responsible for the product concepts of the i3 and i8 from 2010 onwards. Diess also came from BMW to Volkswagen.
Ride with material from Reuters