« Ferrari rules out the SUV rumour | Home Page | Land Rover reaches the 200,000 milestone »
Martin Winterkorn plans to stay CEO until 2018
By Yoann Besnard on 11 December 2007 | (0) Comments | Permalink
In a recent interview Volkswagen group CEO Martin Winterkorn said that he planned to stay until the 2018 goal has been reached. In other words, he will leave his position only if Volkswagen catches up with Toyota or if the board fires him. He also said that he wants VW in 2010 to be where Toyota is today. It means that the group will have to sell 3.3 million more cars by 2010. Quite a challenge for the group!
In order to achieve such an impressive target, Martin Winterkorn says the company will focus on improving its productivity by 10%. He revealed that each Toyota vehicle has a cost advantage of €3,000/2,155-4,000€/£2,875 over Volkswagen. Martin Winterkorn forgets to mention that the minimum wage -700€/£503 is lower in Japan than in Germany. it is also rumoured that Toyota employs Chinese and Korean workers who don't require the Japanese company to provide health insurance. Beyond the Toyota production system, the Japanse social system might also help Toyota to build car at a lesser cost.
Vokswagen CEO also said that German design and perfectionism will make the difference in overcoming Toyota. It is true that Toyota fails mainly on the design side as almost all Toyota cars features a dull styling, but Volkswagen models are not better, except for Audi.
Volkswagen also plans to unveil more than 20 new models over the next three years and will invest £20 billion between 2008 and 2010 in product development and manufacturing.
