Industry Report: Bernhard Uses Close Ties to DCX for VW Minivan Replacement
While the expression, “It’s not what you know but who you know” is in common use, those in the know realize that it’s a combination of what you know and who you know that makes the difference.
Case in point? Wolfgang Bernhard, new Volkswagen-brand CEO. After about a year on the job - probably the best landing any auto executive has made (in recent years at least) after getting turfed out of the upper echelons of another automaker’s management team (Bernhard’s old stomping ground being DaimlerChrysler, having spent most of his time as the money man at Chrysler Group in Auburn Hills, Michigan) - Bernhard was snatched up by ex-BMW boss Bernd Pischetsrieder, current head of VW AG - the parent company of Volkswagen and its many sibling brands. It was a good move for VW, and salt in a festering wound at money-losing Mercedes-Benz - the head position of which was to be Bernhard’s before a falling out with certain member’s of the DCX board.
Of course, Volkswagen AG, like Mercedes-Benz, isn’t exactly making money hand over fist. Some of its brands are doing better than others; ironically two of its top-level performers are premium marques, Bentley and Lamborghini, which are both experiencing record sales. Bernhard has his hands full at VW, mind you, with massive investments in new models and only mildly enthusiastic receptions for most from new car buyers. But what is now the new GTI, Passat, Jetta and dead-in-the-water Phaeton lineup, among others, had little to nothing to do with Bernhard. His influence will be felt in upcoming products, and in the case of a next-generation minivan, the replacement for the Ford-based Sharan, that influence will be thanks to the “who you know” in the aforementioned popular saying.
The “who” in the equation is former Chrysler Group boss and confidant Dieter Zetsche, recently promoted from the North American DCX division, where he did an admirable job steering Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep brands into profitability, to the top-job in Germany, not only overseeing Chrysler Group, but also Mercedes-Benz, smart, Maybach and other investments. What Chrysler Group does extremely well is minivans, leading the field in innovations as well as sales since the inception of the “Magic Wagon”, and with it the most functional of automotive genres. Of course, VW can lay some claim to being the “minivan company” as well, being an innovator in its own right way back when the Microbus was launched in model year 1950. Fifty-six years later the two automakers are joining forces to build what many expect will be the best minivan in the industry, capable of going up against Honda’s superb premium-like Odyssey and Toyota’s high-quality Sienna, as well as a new amazingly good Kia Sedona and its upcoming Hyundai Entourage counterpart, among others.