Volkswagen Group has spoken out about its new organizational structure.
Khodrocar - The new leader of the Volkswagen Group says his priority is to make the world's biggest auto company ready for a rapid technological change.
The world's largest carmaker shuffled its pack Thursday when it announced that former BMW executive Herbert Diess will replace Matthias Mueller, the former head of Porsche who took over following the diesel emissions scandal in late 2015.
Diess told CNBC's Annette Weisbach at the company headquarters in Wolfsburg Friday that the most important thing is to cope with rapid changes affecting the auto industry.
"There is not much room for decision making when it comes to new technologies and autonomous driving. There are new competitors entering our segments and new brands coming from China," he said.
"We have to be fast and very innovative and that is basically why we did this organizational change."
The incoming group boss also said that the company's labor council, which represents the interest of the company's workers, was "fully committed" to the structural and operational changes.
Earlier Friday, Diess told reporters that he would "review all options" when looking at different assets in VW's portfolio. He later clarified that this could mean selling certain operations.
Volkswagen Group's new structure will now be composed of six divisions, as well as a specialist China-focused group. It will also bundle its 12 brands of vehicles into three groups labeled "volume," "premium," and "super-premium."
Volkswagen's "super-premium" group is to include sports car brands Porsche, Bentley, Bugatti and very likely, Lamborghini.
The "premium" segment will hold Audi at its core, targeting BMW and Daimler as its main competitors.
The volume business will include the VW brand, Seat and Skoda, as well as light commercial vehicles.
The truck and buses unit is to be separated as part of a "planned preparation for capital market readiness."
Earlier this year, the company suspended a top executive after news broke that the company was involved in tests of the effects of diesel fumes on humans and monkeys. In 2015 , Volkswagen admitted it had used special devices designed to skew results on U.S. emissions tests.
Source: Motor1
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