Transformation is painful, and it is also necessary to persevere - talk about the departure of Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess

　　Recently, the Volkswagen Group announced that the group's CEO Herbert Diess (Herbert Diess) will leave the company in a few weeks, and Porsche Group CEO Oliver Blumer will take over his duties from September 1.

　　The Supervisory Board of Volkswagen Group held a meeting and voted to approve the above appointment. The Supervisory Board and Diess reached an agreement (he will resign voluntarily). Hans Dieter Pötsch, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Volkswagen, expressed his gratitude to Diess, recognized Diess's important role in promoting the company's transformation process, proposed a series of innovative product concepts, redesigned the product portfolio, and established Volkswagen's strategic thinking on electrification transformation (Roughly 3-4 years before BMW and Daimler).

　　SES Power believes that this matter looks quite simple on the surface, but the significance is very far-reaching, and it also objectively illustrates the difficulty of traditional car companies at the helm:

　　1: For any traditional auto industry practitioner, this sentence is very classic - "Revolution is not a dinner party, it requires real determination and action!". Ford expects to lay off about 8,000 workers in the coming weeks after it splits its electric and gasoline vehicles, the Ford Blue. The biggest problem for Ford to face future changes in a short period of time is not entirely financial hardship, but the determination to reduce the number of personnel in the now profitable division (which is equivalent to self-revolution to remove the foundation accumulated over decades by the company's tailoring), and then go. Increase the personnel and investment in power lithium batteries, software and other departments (these departments will not be profitable for a period of time in the future).

　　Not changing is waiting for death. This is a very simple truth, but in Volkswagen, who will do this? After Diess privately suggested last year that Volkswagen needed to cut 30,000 jobs, angry unions called him out.

　　2: The software of new energy vehicles and peripheral equipment is completely different from the previous vehicles, which is equivalent to tearing down everything and starting over, which naturally consumes resources. The merger of software teams led by Diess has also been criticized by opponents. In addition to delays in construction schedules, budget control has not been satisfactory. As the original software team took on more tasks than it could, the end result was already evident: everything was just barely up to scratch. This is a typical case of weak corporate endowments and resources. Group leaders see shortcomings, but the middle layer fails to do well.

　　3: The pain of scraping the bone to cure poison, just like the situation of Volkswagen in China - due to the limited investment in fuel vehicles, the resources on the engine and gearbox have been taken away by electric vehicles. Without new technology, it is naturally impossible to effectively deal with the current wave of hybridization of DHT in China: the electric vehicle business with huge investment is not satisfactory at present.

　　Although SES Power is a professional service provider for the research and development and manufacture of lithium batteries, we have many battery products that are used in the new energy industry, such as 19-inch 48V100Ah modules for new energy energy storage systems, off-grid energy storage systems, 3Kw~20KW batteries For small off-grid home energy storage systems, there are also lithium iron phosphate batteries that can perfectly replace lead-acid batteries in traditional fuel vehicle starting needs, such as using 12V30AhLFP starting lithium batteries (CCA@1200A) to replace lead-acid 12V60Ah starting Battery. We are quite concerned about the electric vehicle industry because it is the future of transportation. Below we will explain to you in detail what this means.

　　Part 1 Abnormal resignation

　　Before the announcement of the Volkswagen Group, Diess published an open letter to employees on social media for the summer vacation, and did not mention his imminent departure. The Volkswagen Group did not make it clear in its statement why Diess chose to step down at this time. At present, Diess, who is still three full years away from the expiration of his term, suddenly resigns, which is obviously not a normal phenomenon.

　　SES Power believes that with the weakening of the European auto industry, the decline of Volkswagen's performance in China, the contradiction between Diess and the Volkswagen Group's labor union is the core reason for its early resignation.

　　The background is also very simple. EU new car registrations fell by 14.0% year-on-year, with a total of about 4.6 million vehicles. All major European markets saw double-digit declines: Italy (-22.7%), France (-16.3%), Germany (-11.0%) and Spain (-10.7%).

　　(The decline in the European car market is obvious)

　　(Europe's new energy penetration is stuck)

　　Labor representatives make up half of the supervisory board that makes decisions on key issues of the Volkswagen Group. Daniela Cavallo, president of the Volkswagen Group General Union, said the group wanted to ensure job security and profitability were equally important corporate goals. As an employee organization, the focus has always been clear and every worker is involved.

　　The numbers don't lie, we can see that Volkswagen's overall delivery fell by -22.2% in the first half of the year, which is a tragic figure.

　　(delivery by Volkswagen)

　　Part 2 Where will Volkswagen go in the future?

　　Herbert Diess is 63 years old, and it is understandable that it is an objective fact that Herbert Diess is unable to energetically lead the behemoth of the public. According to the current strength of Volkswagen's trade unions, there is a high probability that some changes will still occur:

　　1: Electric vehicles will continue to be developed in Europe. Tesla is on the doorstep, and Europe has also realized the demand for electric vehicles, so we can see that the first phase of Diess batteries will continue.

　　(This is recognized in the Diess era)

　　2: Software is the biggest difficulty. From Audi to Volkswagen, traditional car companies are actually evaluating the revenue model that software can bring. It is foreseeable that there will be some twists and turns in Volkswagen's software plans. For the board of supervisors, it is definitely not a good choice to lay off staff and save money to develop software, so the road to fully self-developed software is particularly difficult.

　　(At present, the investment prospect of this software is relatively empty)

　　3: Intelligence: This matter is the same as the issue with ST, Qualcomm's chips and the global development software center. It is estimated that the progress will be slower and the resistance will be greater.

　　SES Power understands why this wave of development of European car companies is so difficult, because the situation of traditional Chinese car companies and Volkswagen is very similar. Who can make up the mind and find a way to expand sales like Tesla and find a way to make smart cars profitable is very important. A joke is that if the elephant can't turn around, it must turn hard, or it will disappear into the night.