Final yr, Mr. Diess set off a battle with labor leaders when he talked about that as much as 30,000 jobs may finally be reduce as the corporate turned towards making extra electrical autos, which require fewer components.
That prompted a committee throughout the supervisory board to deal with the tensions between the 2 sides. There was hypothesis that Mr. Diess’s job may very well be on the road, and lists of possible successors circulated. Finally, in December, he received new backing from the board, however a few of his obligations had been stripped away.
Mr. Blume, Mr. Diess’s successor, is more likely to proceed Volkswagen’s push into electrical autos. At Porsche, Mr. Blume oversaw improvement of the all-electric Taycan, which has been a success.
However Mr. Blume, 58, will confront the identical conflicts which have lengthy made it tough for anybody to handle Volkswagen, a sprawling world firm with 660,000 staff in China, Europe, Latin America, the USA and different places. The corporate has a manufacturing facility in Chattanooga, Tenn., that may quickly start producing the ID.4, an electrical sport utility automobile.
Volkswagen employee representatives maintain half the seats on the supervisory board, as is the case in any respect massive German firms. However they’ve particular energy at Volkswagen as a result of the state of Decrease Saxony, the corporate’s dwelling base, owns 20 p.c of the voting shares, has two seats on the board and often backs labor.
Mr. Blume will stay chief government of Porsche, which is making ready to promote shares in an preliminary public providing.
