The Volkswagen Group has announced plans to dismiss almost the entire board of its software subsidiary Cariad, which has been facing numerous problems. The new head of Cariad will be Peter Bosch, who is currently the head of production at the Group’s subsidiary Bentley.
Bosch is to be appointed to head Cariad by VW group CEO Oliver Blume as a reorganizer. He will replace Dirk Hilgenberg, who will vacate his position, as will Cariad’s head of technology Lynn Longo and chief financial officer Thomas Sedran. While it is not yet known whether Hilgenberg, Longo, and Sedran will leave the VW group completely, all three are currently discussing a move to other areas of the VW world, according to the Handelsblatt.
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The strategic realignment of the software subsidiary, which has been problematic for a long time, has already been worked out under Blume. In autonomous driving, the Group is to cooperate with Mobileye in the future. Exactly which parts Cariad will take over from Mobileye and what will still be developed in-house is not yet known.
In addition to the new executive board personnel, a reorganization of work processes is also planned. This year, costs are to be reduced by a “medium three-digit million amount”.
Delays in software development had led to delays in the electric vehicle models Porsche Macan and the Audi Q6 e-tron and ultimately to the dismissal of Herbert Diess. Under his successor Oliver Blume, some software start-ups have already been equalized, which is why future model planning had to be further adjusted. However, as with the Macan and Q6 e-tron, it should be ruled out at an early stage that cars developed on the hardware side cannot be brought to market without the appropriate software, or that problems such as those with the ID.3 start-up will recur.
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The reorganization of the software subsidiary is likely to be a topic at the annual general meeting of the Volkswagen Group taking place this week in Berlin. The personnel changes will be confirmed on the fringes of the general meeting.
