VW plans to redesign its core brand

Germany’s largest carmaker Volkswagen (VW) wants to increase the return on its core brand by mass conversion. “We can see that our brand – for all its strengths – is not yet economically strong,” says an internal message from VW brand chief Thomas Schaeffer, which was available to AFP yesterday evening, to staff.

In it, Schaffer set a “sustainable” return on sales of 6.5 percent as a goal. According to him, the Volkswagen brand made a return of only three percent in the first quarter. Therefore, a program to “significantly increase efficiency and synergy” will now begin, the brand chief announced.

According to information from “Handelsblatt”, the core brand of the Wolfsburg group is the renewal of its model range and “savings at all levels”. The paper quotes corporate circles as saying there is a package in the room that should increase annual results by at least three billion euros, but it could be “much more”.

Job cuts ‘not the goal’

This is why Kreisen zufolge explizit nicht um einen Stellenabbau, berichtete das „Handelsblatt“ weiter: „Das ist nicht das Ziel.” Verbrennerwagen, Schreibt The newspaper. However, this will be regulated by partial retirement and no re-filling of positions.

In the letter to the workforce, Shafer makes it clear that it is still “too early” to give details of the program. This will happen “in the coming weeks and months.” Handelsblatt states that the group wants to present the first key data of the transfer to its investors at a conference on June 21.