Editor's letter: Thomas Schafer is taking VW to new heights

It's rare to get to talk to car executives early on in their tenures, usually for fear of them not being up to speed or speaking without all the facts at their disposal. But last August presented a rare opportunity to speak to a CEO who had been in their job for just over a month, when I met VW CEO Thomas Schäfer at a Car of the Year test drive event for the then new VW ID Buzz. I was expecting a dead bat, with plenty of niceties and lots of general terms, yet instead found a man who was prepared to not only lay out what was wrong with the brand but also how he was going to fix it. It was the first time we heard of Schäfer’s plan to “make VW a loved brand again”, a phrase that felt quite the bombshell when we first heard it, but so invested is VW into realising it that it has even been adopted by the brand in its communications. While being clear as a goal for the future, the phrase also says a lot about VW at the time of Shäfer’s arrival. Just over a year later, at the Munich motor show, I asked him how it was going, and how such a friendly and approachable yet clearly very astute executive was personally finding life at the top of what until his arrival was perhaps the most ‘corporate’ car company of all. “When I started in my previous job, I thought: ‘I don’t think I’m the right guy in this industry.’ Not taking life too seriously, trying to see the bigger picture, is it really worth fighting about this now… No, okay, let’s move on. Maybe I should change? But I think not. “Now, the total environment has changed. Having empathy for your people and customers, trying to find the best solutions, teamwork. Oliver [Blume, VW Group boss] is a great team worker and it’s fun to come together as a board and face unlimited challenges. “But so what? We try to face it and make the best of it. “I think that changes the spirit. We have lots of people that come out of the lower levels, do presentations and give us their opinion. That’s when you get momentum, not when you have only the top guy presenting; everybody apologising and too scared because your lives are on the line for the wrong comment. “We’re in such a fast-moving environment at the moment that you need everybody thinking along, and push, push, push. I hope that this culture has really settled within the company. I have lots of fun going to work. Volkswagen is a great company. People have now gotten used to my humour… slowly.” The ‘loved brand’ culture is not just talk from Schäfer but the way he has run the business, putting the customer at the very centre of every decision, from the design of cars to the brand’s web pages. “It’s a cultural thing and it’s a mindset thing. When you say customer focus, does it mean customer focus when you have the time or budget, or is it real empathy for the customer and you want to make it better for the customer? “As a team together at Volkswagen, we’re going to start with everything the customer touches, from web pages to customer service to advertising. If you come to an exhibition like this [the Munich motor show] the touch and feel of the stand, of the personnel, it’s approachable and it’s genuine. “What’s the core of the brand? What do we stand for? We are not premium and exclusive. We are inclusive. That’s a journey. We challenge it every day and week in our board meetings. Advertising: is it right? Yes or no? No? Okay - next. I think it’s getting right. The design is supporting this with the models we bring, but also the feedback from the TV campaigns. I’m always pushing for more but so far I’m quite happy after 12 months that we’re at the point that we are.” The only true Schäfer VW we’ve so far seen is the ID 2all concept car and the GTI spin-off it has produced. The car has been warmly received for showing a friendlier and more accessible side of VW again but it’s gone much further than design by having the pledge to offer an electric car with a Golf-sized interior for €25,000 when it launches in 2025. READ MORE: Volkswagen ID GTI already testing, with Mk5 Golf GTI as benchmark It appears no stone is being left unturned at VW in its quest to transform itself and modernise and overhaul all areas of the business and the brand and its processes, including the desire to reduce the development times of its cars by 18 months to just three years in a team led by Kai Grünitz. Grünitz is as fresh-faced and quotable as Schäfer, but the two also share a believability factor and the ability to challenge decades-long norms at Wolfsburg. One such challenge that Grünitz admits is difficult to overcome is to diversify the engineering team beyond German-speaking men, something hindered by location. “We’re a German technology company in Wolfsburg with a train that doesn’t stop from Hamburg to Berlin…” He’s also trying to adopt English as the language used within engineering meetings in order to make the company more appealing to work for international talent “but it’s quite difficult to integrate non-native German engineers into my team because if it’s getting tough, we switch to German”. Whatever the make-up of his team, Grünitz wants to be creating storied Volkswagens again that allow you “to make memories with your car” that “bring a smile to your face” with the technology and the way it drives. The cars are designed by a team led by Andreas Mindt, formerly of Audi and most recently of Bentley. He’s clearly a talented designer but also a nice person to be around and talk to, and the GTI concept is a good example of Schäfer’s culture and mindset resulting in a car that’s easy to like. Mindt is too humble to talk about himself, yet his star is on the rise. “What I really like about Andy is that he can inspire his team. Months ago, there was just one designer and he decided everything and it was his idea - or not his idea. Andy gives concrete lines [to the design team as boundaries] left and right and suddenly there’s this team coming up with new ideas, a lot of great ideas. And I’m wondering why the hell are these ideas coming out now, so late and not four years ago?!” Better late than never, at least, and another sign that this is a new VW that can walk the walk as well as talk the talk. Such dramatic change in the most traditional of car companies seemed implausible a year ago, yet far from being sucked into the machine, Schäfer and his team seem to be reprogramming it.