"BERLIN -- Volkswagen AG's new CEO, Oliver Blume, endorsed his predecessor's ambitious electric-vehicle strategy on his first day in the job, but said traditional combustion engines could also play a role in the company's effort to reduce its vehicles' greenhouse-gas emissions.
Mr. Blume said that while he backed VW's EV push and might even accelerate it, VW would likely also produce vehicles with low-carbon combustion engines for many years to come.
"Synthetic fuels have the advantage that they can be transported like conventional fuels," Mr. Blume told Germany's Braunschweiger Zeitung newspaper in an interview published on Thursday. "And in addition, today's infrastructure can be used," he said.
Mr. Blume, who is also chief of VW's sports-car brand, Porsche, and his development team there have long embraced so-called electrofuels, a synthetic, low-carbon fuel that can be used in today's vehicles, as a way to keep internal conventional engines in the market longer while reducing their carbon footprint.
Mr. Blume's support for increasing the role of e-fuels within VW's overall strategy could result in shifting some resources away from electric vehicles to conventional vehicles, said Ferdinand Dudenhoffer, director of CAR-Center for Automotive Research in Duisburg, Germany.
"As a result, VW investment in battery electric vehicles could suffer," Mr. Dudenhoffer said.
In a separate announcement, Porsche said it would hire Sajjad Khan, a respected technology executive who previously worked in leading roles for BMW and Mercedes-Benz, to join its board and oversee automotive information technology development. Mr. Blume, in his role as Porsche CEO, welcomed Mr. Khan, saying it was good to have such a "proven digital expert on board."
Addressing VW top managers at a company gathering in Portugal on Thursday, Mr. Blume nonetheless said the company needed to sharpen its focus on implementing its EV road map and making sure it reached its goals.
"Now, we have to deliver," Mr. Blume told the executives gathered from around the world for the annual conference, according to excerpts from his speech.
The 54-year-old, a 28-year company veteran who has held leadership positions at four of the company's main car brands, was picked by VW's main shareholders as the car giant's new boss after they fired Herbert Diess in July.
Mr. Diess, a former Bayerische Motoren Werke AG executive, joined VW in 2015, becoming CEO in 2018. He transformed the car maker's public image tarnished by an emission-cheating scandal, and set it on a course to rival EV pioneer Tesla Inc.
While well-regarded by analysts, Mr. Diess struggled to deliver on his objectives, including a plan to centralize all software development for VW and bring it in-house.
He also repeatedly fell out with the company's powerful labor representatives, some managers at the car maker's main brands and some of the company's largest shareholders.
As Mr. Blume began addressing the executives in Lisbon, the company's directors announced that they had approved his plan to reduce the size of the management board from 12 to nine, in a move to encourage faster decision making.
Under Mr. Diess, VW's main shareholders had packed the management board with new positions in what analysts saw as an attempt to keep a mistrusted CEO in check." [1]
1. Business & Technology: VW Chief Endorses EV Strategy --- Combustion engines still viewed as having role in efforts to curb greenhouse gases
Boston, William.
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 02 Sep 2022: B.4.
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