Volkswagen is facing significant challenges, leading to major restructuring. The company initially outlined 50,000 job cuts in March and has now announced another 50,000, bringing the total to 100,000 potential job reductions. This represents 15-18% of their global workforce to be trimmed by the end of the decade. Labor unions, while tense, have secured assurances of no compulsory redundancies and are aiming for targets of a 9% margin and 9 million unit sales by the end of the decade.
The speaker asserts that Volkswagen is "completely and utterly cooked" due to "inept leadership's total cowardice, incompetence, and idiocy," further hampered by bureaucracy, German government ownership, and union demands. They argue VW missed an opportunity over half a decade ago, when Herbert Diess was in charge, to collaborate with Tesla. The speaker suggests VW should have integrated Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) as a subscription service, hypothetically generating billions in profit annually (e.g., $1 billion in the first year from a 15% global take rate on 10 million FSD-capable vehicles, splitting $100/month subscriptions). They also suggest licensing Tesla's battery, powertrain, software, and operating system technology.
In terms of efficiency measures, Volkswagen is reportedly cutting approximately 50% of its vehicle lineup, a decision the speaker deems wise but "more than half a decade too late." Unions have received assurances that there will be no immediate factory closures, and contentious plants could be repurposed.
Volkswagen's CEO, Oliver Bloomer, has been given a bigger mandate by the board and has stepped down from his CEO role at Porsche to focus on the VW turnaround. However, the company's stock is down over 60% in the last five years. Stellantis and Volvo have also seen significant stock declines, over 70% and 60% respectively, attributed to competition from Tesla and Chinese EV manufacturers.
The speaker extends similar criticisms to Toyota, calling it "completely fucking cooked" due to incompetent leadership. They recall Toyota's past collaboration with Tesla (electric drivetrains for Rav4s, a 10% stake in Tesla) but criticize Toyota's more recent strategy of pursuing four independent propulsion forms (internal combustion, hydrogen, trans EVs, and pure EVs) as "spreading themselves too thin." The speaker predicts that what is happening to Volkswagen will repeat with Toyota. They emphasize that the future purchase decision for a vehicle will be whether it can drive itself (via FSD) or not, likening it to choosing a computer with or without internet connectivity today. They conclude that both VW and Toyota are "gigantic titanics" that have collided with an iceberg and are in a "death spiral."