Rumor: VW has removed the CEO of the software division after two weeks

By admin On Jul 13, 2020

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Volkswagen would have removed Christian Senger from his position as CEO of Car.Software.Org, the software division of VW. The company had officially appointed Senger as head of the division effective July 1.

While setting up Car.Software.Org, Senger allegedly came into conflict with too many people within VW, reports Handelsblatt. The newspaper writes that Senger brought together experts from within the VW group in the software division, so that it could make the software for the various VW subsidiary brands as an independent unit. This would have met resistance from individual brand executives, who feared their influence and power.

The software chief would also have asked for too many resources, without specifying enough what all those resources were for. The change of position would be part of a larger-scale reorganization within VW, with which the director of the group, Herbert Diess, would like to demonstrate his power. Diess himself came under fire from commissioners, with claims of law-breaking, but he got away with a reprimand. The supervisory directors would like a breath of fresh air in the management team and in recent months Diess has replaced various top executives for this reason.

Audi boss Markus Duesmann would in future be responsible for the development of the VW group’s digital units, which may also include Car.Software.Org. Volkswagen has big plans for this software division, which is located at the Audi Innovation Campus in Ingolstadt. This should consist of about ten thousand developers and ensure that VW is no longer dependent on third parties such as Bosch or LG for software, but that it makes as much as possible in-house.

Senger was previously responsible for the development of Volkswagen’s electric ID series and has been working on Car.Software.Org since March, which he officially led since July 1. He previously worked at BMW on the i-series electric vehicles. He is one of the managers who followed Diess from BMW to Volkswagen in 2014.