VW aimed to make 800,000 electric vehicles this year across its key brands, and 1.3 million next year, and while that’s a lot of cars, it would still have remained a predominantly fossil fuel business.
Nor has there been much sign of the killer electric vehicle, a model that can transform the industry the way the Beetle or, of course, the Golf did. Instead, he’s been playing catch-up with more exciting rivals.
Still, there is no doubt that Diess was on the right track.
A disruptive and flamboyant figure – no wonder he was close to Elon Musk, who once offered him a job as head of Tesla – he was always ready to take on unions, distributors, suppliers and , in fact, to the German government while trying. to reshape the company.
Someone had to make radical changes if the business was not to become an irrelevance doomed to slow decline. His successor, Oliver Blume, is a career VW man with a reputation for being a safe pair of hands. It’s hard to imagine it will do much more than steady the ship for years to come.
VW will once again be led by a very conservative and risk-averse supervisory board.
What happens to VW, on one level, may not matter much to anyone other than its workers, shareholders and possibly customers (although they have plenty of alternatives to choose from if they want a new car). But VW is not just any company. More than any of its rivals, it is emblematic of German Inc. And Germany itself needs a new strategy as much as the iconic carmaker.
The country’s economy model looks as roadworthy as a rusty 20-year-old Golf.