VW new appointments and Akio Toyoda's fascination with the Scirocco

VW have made no secret of its intention to unseat giant Toyota Motor Co. as the world's largest automaker by 2018. But an organization is only as good as its people. Just in the month of November alone, there have been 3 major high profile appointments within the VW Group's top management team.


First to hit the headlines was the appointment of Karl-Thomas Neumann as VW AG's chief of VAG's electric vehicles group. Karl-Thomas Neumann was a former VW executive between 1999 and 2004, where he was the group's head of electronics research and electronics strategy. He later moved to automotive parts supplier Continental where he assumed the role of chief technology officer. In Conti, he played a key role in the opening of Conti's lithium-ion battery plant in Nuremberg, Germany, which currently supplies lithium-ion batteries to the Mercedes-Benz S400 Hybrid, the first production lithium battery powered hybrid car. When Continental was acquired by smaller rival Schaeffler KG, Karl-Thomas Neumann was involved in a bitter board room struggle with Schaeffler's management. He left Conti due to "irreconcilable" with Conti's new owner and was replaced by Elmar Degenhart, the former head Schaeffler's automotive division. VW AG's numero uno Ferdinand Piech was quick to snap him up as Piech sees electrification of vehicles to be a very important trend in the future. Neumann has a doctorate in electrical engineering and was educated in Dortmund and Duisburg universities in Germany. In his early years with Audi, Neumann was praised the then Audi CEO Martin Winterkorn (current CEO of VW Group) for fixing many electrical glitches in Audi vehicles.


Audi CEO Rupert Stadler was also appointed as chairman of Audi board of management. He still retains his current role as CEO of the fastest growing premium brand in the world. Stadler is a finance expert and a recipient of the 2009 Automotive News Eurostars award. Prior to joining Audi, Stadler ran Ferdinand Piech's office in Wolfsburg.


The most recent appointment is Christian Klingler, who will assume the role of VW AG's global head of sales and marketing. Klinger was previously attached to Porsche Holdings, which despite the name, is actually a multi-brand car dealership in Europe (the largest in the continent) which not only sells VW group vehicles but as well as Renault and Peugeot. Porsche Holdings is controlled by the Piech and Porsche families and is based in Salzburg, Austria. Klinger is referred to as one with a very deep understanding of the retail business, having ran dealerships of various car brands. Part of Klinger's war chest is a 4.4 billion euros ($6.5 billion) budget that VW plans to spend annually on its model range over the next three years to expand into new segments, refresh existing products and develop powerful, low-emission engines.

In a related news, Toyota's current chief of staff Akio Toyoda made some very candid statements in his Japanese language blog at gazoo.com. Akio Toyoda races cars and blogs under the pseudonym Morizo. After testing VW's new Scirocco, Akio Toyoda (Morizo) wrote that he was very impressed with the car and would spur to built more "fun to drive" Toyota vehicles.

"I'm jealous!" he blogged in July after test driving one. Besides having "cool styling, it runs incredibly well, to the extent I can't believe it is a 2000cc engine." He also added that, "I cannot afford to lose. I will tackle the challenge of creating a car with even more splendid flavor than the Scirocco."

Morizo also commented on how boring the last Tokyo Motor Show was. He said "It was all green. But I wonder how many inspired people to get excited." He added "Of course, eco-friendly cars are a prerequisite for the future, but there must be more than that." Akio Toyoda have previously explained his opinion that he believed the reason for low interest in cars amongst today's Japanese youth (they are more interested in gadgets, plus an ultra efficient public transport system and high cost of vehicle ownership puts cars well at the bottom of a typical Japanese youth's to-buy list) is because car companies have lost touch with their younger customers, not because they are no longer interested in cars.

Gazoo.com is a brain child of Akio Toyoda and was launched with no assistance from the management of Toyota. The conservative management of TMC did not agree with Toyoda's idea but he stuck on and raised funds on his own to setup it up. Today, Gazoo.com is a leading automotive and lifestyle web portal in Japan.


In relation to Toyoda's intention of building more fun to drive cars, gazoo.com have published a few articles on the topic of "automotive seasoning" - the philosophy of giving cars a unique "taste" and character. At the centre of this article is Hiromu Naruse, Toyota's master test driver, engineer and referred to within the Japanese motoring press as Meister. His work included the classic 2000GT, Celica, AE86, MR-2 and Altezza. According to Gazoo, even Ferrari acknowledges Haruse's expertise and calls him "Nur-Meister" (one and only master craftsmen) and "man who knows all the world's roads." Men like Haruse, who during previous TMC President Katsuaki Watanabe's time (who stopped all sports / performance car development) spent some years in the proverbial desert, with nothing to breathe their master talents upon will see some form of revival in their influence under Toyoda's leadership.