In May, Volkswagen Group CEO Oliver Blume made good on part of the 10-point plan established when he took office last September.
Internal software development company Cariad SE came in for yet another round of reorganisation. Cariad CEO Dirk Hilgenberg, CTO Lynn Longo and CFO Thomas Sedran have all been removed from their posts, pending reassignment within the group. All three positions are to be filled by Bentley Member of the Board for Manufacturing Peter Bosch.
In announcing the personnel change, Blume said: “Peter Bosch is the right CEO at the right time... He’s a strategist, implementer and team player. He successfully proved that at Bentley. He knows the Volkswagen Group well and also has extensive change and consulting experience.” The announcement did not clarify how Bosch’s manufacturing expertise would translate to successfully running a software development company.
Cariad’s predecessor, Car.Software, was formed as a separate company inside Volkswagen on January 1, 2020. Former Volkswagen chairman Herbert Diess was a key sponsor, tasking it with eliminating the rapidly failing network of on-board component software patches and replacing them with a common operating system (OS) for all group vehicles. A clash of cultures quickly ensued. The core of the conflict came from two different philosophies. Car.Software was immediately tasked with providing a common vehicle OS for the upcoming all-electric line of ID vehicles. In the longer term, Car.Software was to develop advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and progressively greater vehicle autonomous functions while increasing vehicle interconnectivity.
Finally, Car.Software was to build the foundation for the software-defined vehicle. Which, as the name implies, starts with defining the digital ecosystem, products and services the vehicle will provide its occupants, with the vehicle’s design following from there.
Under-resourced for any one task and pursuing all simultaneously, Car.Software consistently missed deadlines, bringing itself into conflict with the highly structured and schedule-oriented manufacturing arms of all the group’s brands. The Volkswagen ID 3 made its debut with key infotainment and functionality features lacking at delivery to customers, as did the later ID 4. The promised rectification of vehicles already in customer hands happened slowly and there were many missed delivery dates along the way. Porsche and Audi fought with the software newcomers intensely. Both premium brands ultimately rejected the common OS 1.0 in favor of vehicle operating systems developed in-house.
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