Volkswagen is in an irreversible decline ('cooked') because of poor management and structural issues; current restructuring efforts are insufficient to save the company.

Things are not going well for Volkswagen. The backdrop for Volkswagen is that there is a deterioration they see in the competitive environment. There is the increased pressure on Volkswagen's long-term financial position and therefore it needs to double down on the cuts.

First outlining 50,000 job cuts in March and another 50,000 now which takes Volkswagen to around maybe 15 to 18% of the global workforce being trimmed over the end of the decade at least and what this means for the unions, particularly the the labor unions who represent the workers on the board, they are saying that this means that there will be no compulsory compulsory redundancies and the fact that there there is a target of achieving, for example, a 9% margin and 9 million unit sales of cars by the end of the decade and by doing that maybe there is some wiggle room around some of the longer-term job cuts.

So they are trying to play this all down as there is this tense pressure from obviously, of course, the the very hostile unions that will also pressure Europe's biggest car maker.

So I'm not great at math, but I think we just heard 50,000 job cuts earlier in the year, another 50,000 now for a total of 100,000. You got to feel for the employees at Volkswagen who have been or will soon be let go, but we have to be honest here, the company is completely and utterly cooked. They did this to themselves.

They did have a chance if more than half a decade ago when Herbert Diess was still there leading the company, praising Tesla, admitting out loud that VW was learning from what Tesla had done, hoping to replicate some of their success, giving credit where it was due, which probably ultimately led to him being shitcanned by the company for saying the truth about Tesla.

So easily implemented if only VW had the brains to see this coming. Instead, inept leadership's total cowardice, incompetence, and idiocy at the top. Now, add to that fact that it's a total bureaucratic, red tape encrusted [ __ ] of a company.

Too many people with decision-making power, no leadership. German government has an ownership stake and a say, I'm not even kidding by the way. I mean, the most bureaucratic place on Earth, the most bureaucratic entity, the government, in the most bureaucratic country on the planet, Germany, it's like gig bureaucracy, has a stake.

The company is beholden to workers unions, whose demands, of course, are insane and always counterproductive to the actual employees they purport to be helping and working for.

VW still could have made some of the decisions earlier. License the technology from Tesla, battery tech, powertrain, software, the operating system inside the vehicles. Unfortunately, you can't fix stupid.

I've been calling this now for what, 6 plus years publicly, I'm on the record. Just go look up Volkswagen VW, search the channel, sort by date, you'll find plenty of videos calling this miles away.

I'm some [ __ ] idiot on the internet and I could see this coming.

Now, VW and Toyota today, depending on the year, are the world's largest automotive manufacturers, roughly the same scale by unit sold. We'll call it about 10 million vehicles a year.

Both companies completely [ __ ] cooked because both companies have incompetent leadership. I don't want this to be the case, but this is how things will play out.

I've been saying for nearly 7 years now, Toyota, Volkswagen, they're both gigantic titanics. They collided with the iceberg. They don't sink immediately, but you can tell what's going to ultimately happen.

The death spiral is underway. It's too late now.

Again, I feel bad for the VW employees. Same is true for Toyota employees. It's coming, trust me. It's not their fault that they work for a company with retards at the top, but I do hope that the VW and Toyota and other legacy auto company employees do have a plan B, C, D, and E otherwise they're in big trouble.

But of course it's not just job cuts. What else is in this final package when it comes to efficiency measures and the industrial footprint? Yeah, unions got some assurances that there'll be no immediate closure of factories and any contentious plants that will be closed could be repurposed and that is something that the company will be thinking about and will be working so they will not be making a too speedy decision on.

And so by doing this this helps, but of course when you see the reality that Volkswagen will be cutting around 50% of its vehicle lineup, there will be a huge reshaping of this company and currently this will mean that the company is at an inflection point to see whether all of these extra changes it needs to feel and make will be successful over the long run.

Did I just hear correctly? They're halving the number of vehicle models being offered. This is a wise decision, something I suggested they should have done again on the record about 7 years ago repeatedly.

Too much complexity, not enough benefiting from economies of scale.

As I said many times, the winning business model in automotive, which is honestly a terrible business in the first place with piss-poor margins, volatility, a cyclical nature, so there's downturns, the winning strategy is to have one category killer per major category.

That's it. Don't piss around unless your goal be a tiny niche little company. If you're a high-volume manufacturer like VW, Toyota, you want one category killer per category. One excellent compact SUV, one excellent sedan.

Don't give people 600 different options with every vehicle.

So, at least VW is starting to make a couple of wise decisions. It's just more than half a decade too late. Remember, folks, complexity appeals to stupid people and there are many such folks out there in the general public.

All VW needed to do was nail an incredible sedan, an incredible SUV, scale back just about everything else, cancel a bunch of other models, license Tesla FSD, use some of their technology in the powertrain for more efficiency, to reduce their manufacturing costs, and here we are.

And how big of a game changer really is this then for CEO Oliver Oliver Blume? Yeah, for Oliver Blume, it's going to be a critical one. The fact that he has been given by the board this bigger mandate, something that he had really wanted.

Also, on top of that, the the fact that some of the the bigger shareholders of Volkswagen really had been pressuring for steeper, quicker cuts in order to preserve the financial targets.

This really helps underline the support of the board for Oliver Blume who had also given up some of his responsibilities by letting go of his CEO role at Porsche, a subsidiary of Volkswagen.

So, it really helped him focus and concentrate on the bigger picture in turning around Europe's biggest car maker.

Last 5 years, looking at stocks of some of the larger European automotive manufacturers, Volkswagen down more than 60%

Of course, he has been given the mandate. It's going to be hopeful that this all works in the long run. If it doesn't, clearly there'll be a challenge for Oliver Blume. Hate to break it to everybody, but hope is not a strategy.

VW is completely and utterly cooked. I don't want this to be the case, but I saw them collide with the iceberg. I pointed it out nearly 7 years ago and while they've been rearranging the chairs on the Titanic on the deck, new CEO, potentially close this factory, some possible job cuts here.

It's too little, too late. The company's going to be sinking and then inhabiting the bottom of the ocean floor. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. And this all could have been avoided.

Cowardly, incompetent leadership, poor decision-making, this is the result.