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Former Apple Car Hire Johann Jungwirth Joins Volkswagen as Head of Digitalization Strategy
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I would imagine this is a huge part of what is going on, the board at VW needs to show that there is a real shake up happening.
Damn, he'd only been at Apple for less than a year working on Project Titan. He was pretty clearly working on the car -- his whole career had been automotive engineering. He started in February, coming from Mercedes Benz. I wonder what didn't work out. :| It's hard to read too much into these things without more info.
Äpfelwagen with rpm Vergnügen.
First they have to clean up apr. 540,000 car emission systems.
Years of losses pre-programmed
Cannot be done with: You're driving it wrong!
Are you from the future? Must be, because afaik VW hasn't been fined; neither in the US nor anywhere else in the world for that matter. You may be referring to the headline grabbing $18 billion possibility. Not gonna happen. They will probably end up paying somewhere in the range of Toyota's $1.2 billion, which is in the same range GM's $900 million. Funny enough, foreign companies as a whole do end up paying higher fines than American companies so you're not wrong about the home cooking. It's just the hyperbole about a slap on the wrist vs billions sort of overshadows the rest of your comment. Now when the rest of the world finishes with VW, the aggregate fines will dwarf anything GM got. VW is going to be in a world of hurt. They are probably going to start shedding brands like a mangy cat. Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT, and Skoda will most likely have for sale signs on the front lawn. Porsce and Audi are a license to print money so they aren't going anywhere.
Volkswagen has some high level engineering vacancies because heads are rolling. Most likely it is money ( bonus, relocation , etc. ) and opportunity. Even if he started up the Titan into a set of products no telling whether Apple is going to stick with that. Or that it would get off the ground.
Personally, I doubt it is actually a whole car. More likely it will be a computer subsystem that car manufacturer can embed.
the Mac Systems Engineering team ( as in the whole team) and that quoted statement don't particularly line up. It look more so that he was a "director in" the Mac product area rather than the "Director of" the Mac Product area. Looking at his LinkedIn profile pretty much backs that up.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/johannjungwirth
A Technical director can be someone who is leading a particular area in a group of products. More like a director of a movie than a director of a whole studio.
From the quoted some detailed description it looks like he was charged with rapidly ramping up what is being leaked as Project Titan. The Mac part seems for more likely something akin to a CIA front organization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_organization) as a cover story as to what his job actually was.
"Oh, you work at Apple now. What do you do?" ....... "I work in Mac systems engineering..." .. "that's cool..." ( so he doesn't have to talk about cars and get onto a slippery slope of what can and cannot discuss. )
The only real impact on Macs probably was the R&D budget from Macs that was being diverted away into cars. Probably not new growth hires and just treading water staff replacement in the Mac group. That probably wasn't new with his higher, but likely cranked up to a bigger bleed off of potential resources.
As mentioned in an early post it would nice if Apple dropped the pretenses and just hired a car guy to do car stuff and hired more folks to work full time on Macs. Find someone who is going to cut through the BS of 'Robbing Peter to pay Paul" and choking off Mac R&D. Apple can't seem to move one Mac product forward without going comatose on another one. Macs make enough money to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time in product development.
Apple should create a vague "Apple Skunk R&D" organization and assign folks to that if need a front organization cover story (e.g., bleeding edge future Computer car intergration R&D ). Not use the Mac to cover it.
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Skoda is doing pretty well and SEAT also has improved lately, therefore I don't see those going anywhere, either. Especially as that would mean to significantly impair economies of scale.
They might consider some of the other brands you mention, but I doubt they'll act: The potential money they could earn by that move is a one-off mediocre (compared to the bigger scheme of things) sum at best. Not worth the loss of reputation and the ability to balance engineering development over all company brands, with the luxury brands being more able to bear higher-end solutions and more daring projects on a manageable number of products.
Apple has been doing more restricted stock grants than options. Also they typically don't all vest all at once. The ones he vested control of he can walk away with. But it probably isn't all of the potential ones he could have earned. Most employees get access to discounted Apple stock which is technically an option ( just one with extremely low, "up front" risk associated with it. )
Most likely the offer from Volkswagen is going to cover a hefty portion of what he is giving up. Similar to how Angela Ahrendts got Apple to basically buy out her compensation package from Burberry that she was walking away from. Like hers his was likely weighted a bit more heavily than normal to upfront, since Apple was paying for him to walk away from Mercedes-Benz not that long ago. That previous buyout is basically going to get cover even if he leaves again. Apple triggered that move so they pay for at least most of it. Whether that upfront was mostly cash or stock grant doesn't particularly make much of a difference in cost.
Not to defend GM - but the toxic Nitric Oxides and fine particulate pollution from VW's diesel engines will kill far more people than GM's faulty ignition switches ever did. It just takes a bit longer.
Maybe not so much in the US, where they make up a very small proportion of vehicles, but air pollution from excessive numbers of dirty diesel vehicles is a huge problem in Europe.
Well, I live in Texas, I've seen diesel pickup trucks belching out black smoke on a regular basis, not to mention the buses from Mexico.
I have a PZEV Passat...or do I? I do not even know if MY gas car has the cheat software ...but, who cares...
You cannot compare penalties at this time because don't know what VW's fine is yet--the numbers we've seen so far are theoretical, and are based on the maximum fine times the number of vehicles. But historically we know that companies almost never, ever pay the maximum fine, even when they knowingly breaking the rules like VW did.
Comparing an actual penalty to a theoretical maximum penalty is inherently unfair. You might be right, but we won't know until it's over.
Or maybe he didn't work on any "Apple Car" at all while he was there...? Most big hires at large corporations don't just have NDA's to sign, but their contracts usually have non-compete clauses, too. It seems odd to me that he'd be going to another car manufacturer so soon if he was actually working on such tech at Apple. Then again, maybe Apple isn't putting that in any of their contracts so as not to confirm anything they're working on.
While I do not own a TDI, if I were to buy a new car soon it would be a TDI.
(yes I know they're no longer for sale)
Several of my friends have them and they are truly outstanding.
Of great interest to me is the fierce loyalty owners of VW TDI models are showing nationwide. I read an article that backed up what two of my friends that own VW dealerships say. Many of their mainstream customers are so happy with the cars they haven't pushed back against the current debacle. Oh sure there are plenty that are revolting, after all the USA has some of the most predatory lawyers. Especially those who may not have full case loads.
The depth and breadth of this problem seems to continue to grow now that SUV's and Porsches as well as Audi models are affected. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out, especially given the fact that the court system in the USA is quite broken itself.
Based on the timing, this is the perfect time to get stock options. he could probably negotiate a ton of them for risk premium, and they're at a much lower strike price. Keep in mind, options are typically priced and dated at the board meeting following the hire (even if there are pre-allocated shares) and are priced as of that day.