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Ingolstadt (dpa) - Markus Duesmann has been at the helm of the VW subsidiary Audi in Ingolstadt for a year - on Thursday (10:00 a.m.) he presented an annual balance sheet for the first time.
Sales, turnover and profit have all decreased significantly in the Corona crisis.
Duesmann speaks of a “robust annual resolution”, but sees Audi emerging stronger from the crisis: “I am proud of how we managed to accelerate the transformation despite Corona,” he told the German press agency.
Duesmann is responsible for the development of completely independent software for all of the Group's cars on the Volkswagen Board of Management.
At the same time, with the Artemis project, the engineer wants to bring a fully networked electric Audi with this new software onto the market at the end of 2024 and make the brand, which has been shaken by the diesel crisis and changes in the management board, the technology leader in the group again.
"Personnel changes often give more scope for content renewal," said Duesmann.
And the willingness of the workforce to change “this crazy year really impressed me”.
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VW CEO Herbert Diess, who brought him to Audi from BMW, was already “enthusiastic about the way Audi picked up the pace last year, how Markus Duesmann is doing it with the new board” in January.
Audi must not only deliver good profits, but also develop the technology for the entire VW Group and “become significantly faster” in competition with Tesla, BMW and Daimler.
Duesmann said that in order to bring innovations to customers more quickly, “we need a radical break with old structures, less complexity and flatter hierarchies”.
That's why Audi is “revolutionizing the way we develop.
The on-board network - that is, bits and bytes - is the new classification criterion for our series. "
In order to finance future issues, strict cost and investment discipline is still necessary, said the Audi boss.
Last year, sales fell 8 percent to 1.7 million cars, sales from 55.7 to 50.0 billion euros, and operating profit fell from 4.5 to 2.7 billion euros.
At the moment, this means that Porsche is no longer Audi, but the most important profit maker in the VW Group.
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Although Audi now builds more than 90 percent of its cars with gasoline or diesel engines, the brand no longer wants to develop a new combustion engine.
Following the all-electric large SUV e-tron, the e-tron Coupé and the luxury sports car e-tron GT, the smaller SUV Q4 e-tron is due to hit the market in April;
More than 20 Stromers should be on offer in 2025.
The Q4 etron is built in the VW plant in Zwickau, the Audi Artemis in the VW plant in Hanover.
Audi chief operations officer Mosch has already called for the next generations of these two models and batteries to be built in the Audi plants in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm.
The VW subsidiary is reducing jobs there.
Audi is sticking to the employment guarantee until 2029, stressed Duesmann.
In China, Audi achieved a new record in deliveries in 2020, surpassing the 700,000 mark, but lagging behind BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
“We see great potential, especially in the premium segment.
That's why China is a top priority for me, ”said Duesmann.
With the additional Chinese partner SAIC, Audi will "start a new growth phase".
And from April a new electric car plant will be built in Chanchun with long-term partner FAW.
The first cars are to roll off the assembly line there in 2024.
"By 2025 we will have seven locally produced electric models in our portfolio in China," said Duesmann.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210318-99-868633 / 2