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Since the second half of this year, there have been high-level changes within Volkswagen Group. The latest news shows that Volkswagen has begun to reorganize and adjust its senior management structure. In August next year, Volkswagen China will welcome a new head.

According to several media reports, on December 9, Volkswagen Supervisory Board announced a senior management personnel change news, Relevant resolution shows: Volkswagen passenger car brand CEO Brandstaetter joined the group management board, As Volkswagen China president, Responsible for the Chinese market business, This appointment will take effect from August 1 next year. In addition, from April 1 next year, Skoda CEO Thomas Schaefer will take over as chief operating officer of the Volkswagen passenger car brand. In addition, Herbert Diess, the current CEO of Volkswagen Group, will remain as CEO of the group, but his authority will be reduced to be mainly responsible for Cariad, the company's software department.

According to public information, Brandsttter joined Volkswagen Group in 1993 and held positions including metal procurement of chassis and powertrain parts, project management of new car projects, SEAT procurement director, etc. from 1993 to 2008; appointed as Group External Procurement Director in 2010; appointed Group New Product Procurement Director in 2012; General Representative of Volkswagen in 2015; He served as Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Volkswagen Passenger Car Brand in August 2018 and CEO of Volkswagen Brand in July last year.

In fact, in the middle of this year, Volkswagen Group CEO Diss proposed Brandstaetter as president of Volkswagen China, but Brandstaetter rejected it at that time. At the beginning of November, German media Auto Weekly also reported that Volkswagen Group planned to replace the head of China business. At that time, it was reported that Feng Sihan, CEO of Volkswagen Group China, would step down from his current position and leave China on February 1,2022. Feng Sihan then said: "Definitely will leave China," but he also denied that he will leave China on February 1 next year, but in a number of new personnel appointments announced this time, Volkswagen Group has not announced what position the current Volkswagen China CEO Feng Sihan will hold.

In addition, Volkswagen Supervisory Board also announced a new plan for electrification transformation, Volkswagen announced plans to increase spending over the next five years, will invest 89 billion euros (about 101 billion US dollars) in electric vehicles and digital research and development over the next five years, this investment will account for 56% of the group's total investment, is also one of Volkswagen's transformation plans.

Its current plant in Wolfsburg, Germany, will begin full-scale production of new electric vehicles in 2024, and is expected to roll off the production line in 2026. By 2026, a quarter of its cars sold will be equipped with battery drive systems. According to the data, Volkswagen's Wolfsburg plant in Germany has an annual production capacity of 800,000 vehicles. It takes about 20 hours for the plant to produce a Golf or Tiguan. Previously, Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diss said: It is hoped that the efficiency of the factory to produce pure electric vehicles can compete with Tesla and other enterprises, so Volkswagen will transform the factory to improve production efficiency. This investment may improve production efficiency and speed up the manufacture of electric vehicles. Volkswagen said it expects to replace Tesla as the leader in the electric vehicle industry by 2025.

In fact, whether Volkswagen announces a number of new personnel appointments or announces a new plan for electrification transformation, from a certain point of view, it is to accelerate the electrification transformation. Although Volkswagen has previously pointed out that it will surpass Tesla to become the leader in the electric vehicle industry, due to factors such as chip shortage, Volkswagen Group sales in China are not very objective. According to statistics, in the first three quarters of this year, Volkswagen Group delivered 2.55 million new vehicles in the Chinese market, down 4.1% year-on-year. Among them, Volkswagen brand and Skoda brand experienced a large decline, and electric development was also unsatisfactory. In the first seven months of this year, Volkswagen sold about 202,000 pure electric vehicles (BEV), only achieving 34% of its target of 600,000 vehicles in this fiscal year. According to the previous plan, Volkswagen's sales target in China ID. in 2021 was 80,000 to 100,000 units, but as of November, the ID. family sold only 53,300 units. It is not difficult to find from the data that the current road of Volkswagen electrification transformation is not easy, industry insiders speculate that this may be the main reason for the replacement of Volkswagen China leaders.

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