Skoda and Seat worry within the Volkswagen group
According to the German press, Herbert Diess, the boss of the Volkswagen group, will no longer represent Seat and Skoda on their respective steering committees. And both brands are worried about losing influence....
11/04/2022
According to the German press, Herbert Diess, the boss of the Volkswagen group, will no longer represent Seat and Skoda on their respective steering committees. And both brands are worried about losing influence.
For Skoda and Seat, it was a huge asset to have the big boss of the Volkswagen group at the head of their steering committee. But according to information from Handleslblatt, this would no longer be the case. Herbert Diess has reportedly decided to give up his position as head of the Seat and Skoda steering committees, to focus on creating a large workforce of engineers and people involved in software development.
According to our German colleagues, several leaders at Seat and Skoda are worried about this departure, which could reduce the degree of involvement of Volkswagen Group with its Spanish and Czech subsidiaries. It must be said that the German giant must reduce costs as much as possible to finance massive investments in new technologies: software, autonomous driving, cloud and data, mobility services.
For a long time, the place of Seat and Skoda has been the subject of questions from observers. The products indeed compete directly with certain Volkswagen models, often with more advantageous prices.
Platform sharing was also singled out before the global crisis by some Volkswagen union officials in Germany, followed by some executives. Skoda indeed benefits from VW technologies but benefits from lower production costs and better placed customer prices.