Volkswagen AG CEO Matthias Müller prepares to reveal a sweeping restructuring Thursday, the broadest overhaul of the automaker in years and part of the company’s effort to get rid of its emissions crisis in part by moving strongly into electrical vehicles, self-driving vehicles and digital mobility services.
Mr. Müller intends to simplify a company that sells more than 10 million cars every year, runs more than 100 factories from China to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and utilizes more than 600,000 individuals yet chronically lags behind the success of its major competitors, Toyota and General Motors.
“We need to catch up with the finest,” Mr. Müller informed an event of the company’s magnates last month.
Mr. Müller’s plan, called “Strategy 2025,” would like to fix a few of the company’s slow projects, such as the namesake Volkswagen brand name, which generates a small amount of profit, and aim to squeeze cost-savings from the broader group by taking advantage of the company’s scale and item range.
Volkswagen has actually begun carrying out some of the technique objectives that will be outlined in more information in the plan, Mr. Müller has said, such as speeding up advancement of digital technology, self-driving cars and electric powertrains to face the challenges postured by tech competitors such as ride-hailing service Uber Technologies Inc. and Google, that are making self-driving cars.
“Looking ahead, the vehicle won’t be our only core item for much longer. Our core item, our guarantee to people, is mobility,” Mr. Müller stated recently as he revealed a $300 million financial investment in Israeli ride-hailing app GETT.
