Volkswagen, a German automobile company, was once doing well. However, Volkswagen’s current state is highly disappointing. A major German weekly magazine, Der Spiegel, recently reported that “the location data of 800,000 electric vehicles of the Volkswagen Group were exposed on the Internet for several months.” The person who reported this is said to be a Volkswagen employee.
The group’s software subsidiary, Cariad, oversees Volkswagen’s electric vehicle data. The whistle-blower disclosed the electric vehicle location data exposure and vulnerability, which Der Spiegel used to track the locations of two German politicians precisely.
Poor data management
All exposed through hacking
Der Spiegel reported having access to terabytes of data, which include the exact locations and owner details of 460,000 electric vehicles belonging to the Volkswagen Group, stored in Amazon’s cloud storage. Additionally, the publication disclosed information on 35 police vehicles from the Hamburg Police Department—located in Germany’s largest port city—and data on politicians, corporate CEOs, employees of the Federal Intelligence Service, and drivers at the Ramstein Air Base in the United States Air Force.
The Chaos Computer Club, a German security hacker group, reportedly alerted Cariad swiftly about the incident. Upon learning about the security vulnerability, Cariad took steps to address it. Cariad clarified to Der Spiegel that the issue stemmed from a system misconfiguration and asserted that their company does not consolidate data in a manner that could create individual profiles. However, given the extent to which the incident had already escalated, there appeared to be widespread skepticism about the company’s explanation.
Amid financial struggles, Volkswagen is restructuring and weighing the sale of smaller plants
This is not the only decline in Volkswagen’s image. In December, reports said, “Volkswagen announced a restructuring plan to reduce 35,000 jobs in Germany by 2030.” This is equivalent to about 30% of the company’s 120,000 employees in Germany.
Volkswagen and its labor union have agreed to reduce the workforce through socially acceptable means, such as retirement programs and shorter working hours for older people, rather than forced layoffs. Volkswagen’s small factories that are scheduled to be shut down are said to be being converted into autonomous driving centers or being considered for sale.
Reduce production capacity
Managers give up bonuses
Accordingly, Volkswagen will reduce its production capacity in Germany by 734,000 units per year. It also announced plans to reduce costs by more than 4 billion euros annually. According to this agreement, the ID.3 and Cupra Bonn will be produced at the Wolfsburg plant in Germany, and the Golf will be transferred to the Puebla plant in Mexico. The ID.4 and ID.7 will continue to be produced at the Emden plant in Germany as they are now. The T-Roc Cabriolet will be produced at the Osnabrück plant until 2027, and the Audi Q4 e-tron will be made at the Zwickau plant.
Due to Volkswagen’s financial difficulties, 4,000 managers have decided not to accept bonuses equivalent to 10% of their annual income in 2025 and 2026. The employees demand senior executives, including CEO Oliver Blume, give up more than 10% of their salaries. It is interesting to see whether Volkswagen can overcome this crisis and regain its former glory.
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