{"id":12720,"date":"2021-11-01T09:03:54","date_gmt":"2021-11-01T13:03:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/auto\/?p=12720"},"modified":"2021-11-01T09:03:54","modified_gmt":"2021-11-01T13:03:54","slug":"musk-vw-transition-tesla-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=12720","title":{"rendered":"Can Elon Musk Help Volkswagen Become More Like Tesla"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article comes to us courtesy of\u00a0EVANNEX<\/a>, which makes and sells aftermarket Tesla accessories. The opinions expressed therein are not necessarily our own at InsideEVs, nor have we been paid by\u00a0EVANNEX<\/a>\u00a0to publish these articles. We find the company’s perspective as an aftermarket supplier of Tesla accessories interesting and are happy to share its content free of charge. Enjoy!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Posted on<\/span>\u00a0EVANNEX on November 01, 2021\u00a0by<\/span>\u00a0Charles Morris<\/p>\n

Volkswagen<\/a> Group CEO Herbert Diess understands the electric wave that\u2019s building, and unlike most other auto industry leaders, he\u2019s taking bold steps to make sure his company rides it. Diess made some waves of his own a few weeks ago, when he called 120 top-level managers to company HQ for a crisis meeting, and told them VW needs to transform its factories in order to catch up with Tesla<\/a>. More recently, Diess caused even more turbulence in the auto world when he took the daring step of inviting Tesla CEO Elon Musk<\/a> to address 200 Volkswagen executives via a video call.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Above: Elon Musk and Herbert Diess (Source:\u00a0Herbert Diess<\/a>\u00a0\/ LinkedIn)<\/em><\/div>\n

Diess said he brought in Musk as a surprise guest to the managers\u2019 meeting in Alpbach, Austria in order to emphasize the point that VW needs to move faster to make the transition to e-mobility, which Diess called the biggest transformation in VW\u2019s history. He wants VW to have \u201cfaster decisions, less bureaucracy, more responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

The productivity gap between the upstart and the elder statesman is stark. When Tesla\u2019s\u00a0Giga Berlin<\/a>\u00a0cranks up the line, which is expected to happen by the end of this year, it will set new standards for vehicle production. According to a recent report in\u00a0Business Insider<\/a>\u00a0(German), Tesla can build a Model 3 in ten hours, more than three times as quickly as VW builds an ID.3 at its\u00a0Zwickau EV plant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Diess himself said that Tesla has handled the current global chip shortage better than legacy automakers because its software team was able to rewrite Tesla\u2019s software in only two to three weeks in order to enable a switch to another, more readily available type of microchip.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Handelsblatt reports (via\u00a0Reuters<\/a>) that Musk praised VW in his speech, and called it Tesla\u2019s greatest challenger. When Diess asked why Tesla is so much nimbler than its rivals, Musk responded, \u201cIt\u2019s the management style. I\u2019m primarily an engineer and, besides the car, I\u2019m fascinated by supply chains, logistics and production processes.\u201d (Of course, Tesla\u2019s overriding Silicon Valley ethos, and many other brilliant team members, have a lot to do with the company\u2019s innovative excellence.)<\/div>\n

Diess\u00a0said on Twitter<\/a>\u00a0that VW would continue its dialogue with Tesla. \u201cWe will visit you soon in Gr\u00fcnheide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diess\u2019s decision to invite Musk drew a few flames on Twitter, from croakers who dislike Elon Musk, or who believe that the move showed weakness that will damage VW\u2019s brand. However, the vast majority of reactions to the unprecedented reach-out appear to be positive.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0Electrek<\/a>\u2019s Jameson Dow put it, we\u2019re all on \u201cteam electric.\u201d The real competition is not among different EVs, but between the electric future and the smoke-belching past. EV producers (and EV journalists) may compete, but we also need to cooperate to accelerate the end of the Oil Age.<\/p>\n

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This article originally appeared in\u00a0Charged<\/a>. Author:\u00a0Charles Morris<\/a>. Sources:\u00a0Reuters<\/a>,\u00a0Electrek<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article comes to us courtesy of\u00a0EVANNEX, which makes and sells aftermarket Tesla accessories. The opinions expressed therein are not necessarily our own at InsideEVs, nor have we been paid by\u00a0EVANNEX\u00a0to publish these articles. We find the company’s perspective as an aftermarket supplier of Tesla accessories interesting and are happy to share its content free […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-cars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}