VW Group Snags Porsche Design Boss

While we don’t generally rush to mindlessly parrot news about executive changes at major car companies, this one is worth noting. After all, with this shakeup in Germany, it means VW Group and Porsche are about to share a design chief – but one with a familiar face.

Michael Mauer is currently Head of Design at Porsche and to this title, he will add responsibilities for the overarching VW Group. Presumably, this means the man will have an articulated business card to list all his roles at the company. If Mauer’s name sounds familiar, give yourself a gold star since it is not the first time he’s held the reins for VW Group, having previously held this position between 2015 and 2020.

It's all part of responding to the industry’s challenges over the last couple of years. With an eye on structuring the place to move more swiftly in certain areas, Mauer’s movement and a couple of other management shuffles (which come into effect January 1st) are the culmination of VW Group CEO Oliver Blume’s intent to efficiently organize the company. Apparently, key functions have been assigned to the group’s best brands - VW oversees group production and procurement, Audi is in charge of group sales and quality, whilst Porsche will lead design and development. This will somehow lead to 'a clearer setting of priorities’ and quicker enactment of ideas.

This is why your author doesn’t study management structures until he has had his grog ration of Angel’s Envy bourbon.

Through to the end of Q3 in America, VW Group was down 17.8 percent compared to the first nine months of last year, selling 419,623 vehicles versus 510,410 vehicles. The bulk of that loss came from VW itself, which shed 58,334 sales during that time. However, most of this downturn happened in the first half of 2022, shown by third-quarter results jumping by 14.2 percent across the Group – 12.3 at VW, 20.1 at Audi, and 8.5 at Porsche made up the bulk of those gains.

Image [VW Group]

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