If I had told my young self I would one day join the Volkswagen Sustainability Board, that person would have smiled in disbelief. Yes, my friends were all car guys. The type that would start driving school at 17 so they could celebrate their 18th in a Golf. But that wasn’t me. My family never cared much about fancy cars. My folks drove a Citroën. I studied history and cared little for horsepower.
Things changed when I joined T&E in 2011. Those were the glory days of das Auto. Volkswagen & co were making heaps of money in China. Its diesel cars sold like hot cakes and old man Winterkorn ruled as car czar.
Those days, when we tried to discuss the results of our diesel emission tests, car lobbyists dismissed us. What would a little NGO know about cars?
Until one warm September day the news broke. Volkswagen had finally been caught.
Dieselgate changed everything. This was when regulators stopped believing the car industry “knows best”. The days of hubris were over. Out of that crisis a new company culture emerged.
I remember joining an informal meeting around 2017 with the VW management where one of the execs - he is still there - enthusiastically talked about electric cars as tablets on wheels. Volkswagen would build batteries. Its scale would transform the industry. It would be a good corporate citizen, working constructively with regulators.
It was a beautiful story. And it seemed to work. Thanks to its new line of EVs and generous subsidies by the German state, VW (almost) hit its 2020 car CO2 targets. It backed the Green Deal and the EU 2035 CO2 standard. For my part, in 2020, I leased an electric ID3 - my first ever car. The car symbolised what T&E had achieved, transforming old VW into something entirely new and geared for the future.
Four years on, the company is going through its biggest crisis ever. Its sales and profits are down. It faces highly automated, more productive and more agile competitors. And despite all the post-Dieselgate bluster, it is struggling to boost its EV sales and has returned to asking regulators for ‘flexibility’.
That’s when I got an email. Would I be interested to join Volkswagen’s sustainability Council?
I have devoted my entire professional life to transforming the car industry. Volkswagen is Europe’s biggest carmaker. Its fate will loom large. If I can make the smallest of contributions to helping such an iconic company transition to electrification, I feel I must try.
I have many hopes but above all I will work to ensure the company reaffirms its commitment to electrification, and that this is reflected in its communication with its workers, the public and regulators, especially in the upcoming discussions about vehicle emissions in Europe and the USA.
I remain independent and will donate all fees for the Council work to charity. Similarly, I will reassess my participation in the council against the above objective. I have no interest in greenwashing VW. If I can’t meaningfully contribute from the inside, I will step out.
Either way, T&E will continue pushing relentlessly for a rapid shift to zero emission mobility. We will not spare our criticism of any companies, VW included, that move slowly, or lobby against the transition.
This is what is right for climate action, and it is right for Volkswagen. Unless it rapidly and successfully transitions to electric vehicles, VW will fail and Wolfsburg will become the new Detroit.
I may not have grown up a car guy, but in studying history I learnt something about empires. The ones that survive are the ones that adapt.
