Wolfgang Porsche and Hans-Michel Piech, members of the family which controls German automaker Volkswagen, are wholly supporting the shift towards electric cars being driven by CEO Herbert Diess, they informed the Bild newspaper.
Porsche and Piech both sit on the supervisory board of the company.
“There is no alternative today to the path that he and the VW management have taken. If we do not tackle this transformation now, the group will have a big problem in the future,” Porsche informed Bild.
Volkswagen is moving from being a producer of traditional vehicles to making self-driving and connected cars, along with electric vehicles, a step which needs slashing of costs and efficiency gains, Diess stated last month.
Piech stated of Diess: “He has our support. He faces a daunting task. He requires strength, but also support from everyone in the group.”
Porsche added that Germany should consider getting rid of subsidies for diesel vehicles and he also questioned if all the technology experts that Volkswagen is looking for necessarily have to work at its headquarters located in Wolfsburg.
Herbert Diess is a CEO of Volkswagen since 2018.
