At the time of Volkswagen Group CEO Martin Winterkorn’s departure, the company said, “The Executive Committee is expecting further personnel consequences in the next days.” Now we’re getting the first word of who those executives might be.
The German magazine Der Spiegel reports three more heavyweights will be forced out: VW R&D chief Heinz-Jakob Neußer, Audi R&D chief Ulrich Hackenberg, and Porsche R&D chief Wolfgang Hatz. They are supposed to take responsibility for the scandal, which has blown up beyond the wildest imaginations on an international scale. Political outrage has built up and been fanned by reports that the software designed to circumvent U.S. emissions testing was also present on cars sold outside of the U.S. (where, incidentally, it has no effect whatsoever).
The firings have not been officially confirmed yet.
What unites Neußer, Hackenberg, and Hatz is not just their vast knowledge and expertise, and their ability to deep-dive into every technical detail of a car, it is also their love of cars. You could find any of them at races, WRC rallyes, or historical races. Cars were their end, not the means. All three of them had been hand-picked by Ferdinand Piëch and played a major role in making VW the world’s number-one automaker.
Headhunters will scramble to find adequate replacement for the VW Group’s three top engineers, and they might not be able to succeed in this ambitious endeavor. On the other hand, we wouldn’t be surprised if Neußer, Hackenberg, and Hatz were to end up at another carmaker, or a tier-one supplier.
Meanwhile, with the car guys forced out, it’s entirely possible that the bean counters will take over at VW. Sweeeping changes indeed.
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