‘If we do the right things, and if we do them right, then this company has great chances for its future. I'm convinced of it,’ said Matthias Mueller as he laid out VW's Strategy 2025 plan.
A mix of promises to: pay more attention to the company's brands; streamline the company's hierarchy; focus more on electric vehicles and digitalization; and boost returns, the plan is designed to dig VW out of the hole it has been in since it emerged last year that its diesel cars had been rigged to cheat on emissions tests.
That revelation led to a sharp fall in its stock market valuation and billions in legal fees. The company has seen its market share erode and the viability of the entire diesel car industry called into question due to concerns that diesel is too dirty to comply with Western environmental standards.
The plan's presentation was conducted in a closed meeting. However, dpa had access to excerpts of Mueller's presentation.
‘You can not steer a company of this size and international structure and complexity with the principles and structures of yesterday, as successful as they may have been,’ Mueller said.
That means the company must be faster, more agile and more entrepreneurial. He also said cost efficiency must be a goal, with an eye on the 11 million vehicles to be recalled as part of the emissions scandal.
Part of his plan is to give VW's various subsidiaries more control.
‘In the future, decisions here will be made where they can most effectively be taken. In most cases, that will be with the brands.’ He said, instead, he saw a new world in which VW offered more of a steering and integrational role for the various divisions it owns.
Details were not released, though it is assumed that the new strategy will break with the Strategy 2018 document put forward by Mueller's predecessor, Martin Winterkorn, in 2008. Winterkorn had to step down amid the emissions scandal.
VW's main investors meeting is set for June 22. It is not clear if the new strategy will be ready for publication by then.
Separately from the 2025 presentation, a VW spokesman announced that the company has set a new goal of selling 1 million electric and hybrid cars a year by 2025. The sales would be spread across all the groups brands, which also include Porsche and Audi.
Reaching that goal would mean one in every 10 cars sold by the company would have an electric drive.
Volkswagen sold 64,000 electric cars in 2013 out of a total of 6 million cars moved annually, most of them with diesel and petrol engines.
Germany's government on Wednesday announced subsidies for the purchase of electric cars, with the government prepared to pay 4,000 euros for the purchase of an electric vehicle and 3,000 euros for a hybrid.
The company also announced a new wage deal Friday with its 120,000 employees, who will see a 2.8-per-cent pay rise in September followed by another 2-per-cent increase in August 2017.
