Digital issues claim senior exec.

Software challenges continue to buffer VW’s digital and electric vehicle ambitions.

The German automotive conglomerate is steadfast in its commitment to have a fleet of highly digitized future vehicles, mostly powered by batteries instead of petrol or diesel. What VW has discovered, is that harmonizing all those digital features and making the new electric vehicle powertrain architectures work, isn’t easy.

VW has already admitted that software issues are the cause of its delayed Golf 8 global production and delivery timetable. The latest news from Germany would indicate that things might not be getting better.

Bloomberg has reported that VW’s head of ‘Digital Car & Services’, Christian Senger, is soon to be without a job, little more than a year after taking his senior position.

A qualified mechanical engineer, Senger started his career at BMW, serving between 1997 and 2012, where he eventually became the i Product specialist (i3 and i8).

After BMW, Senger worked for Continental, in the supplier company’s impressive Automotive Systems & Technology division. He eventually joined VW in 2016, with the role of E-Mobility product boss. VW clearly identified Senger as a staffer with the required skills to drive the company’s future electric vehicle product development initiatives.

All that would now appear to be at an end, with the Golf 8 and ID-series software glitches requiring consequence management – which has cost Senger his job.

For VW the challenge will now be twofold: it must speedily find a suitably skilled replacement, for a difficult job, whileaccelerating the product delivery of its Golf 8 and ID vehicles. Both withsoftware issues that Senger probably had a better understanding of, than most.

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