Company history

Volkswagen is one of the world’s largest car manufacturers. It employs around 340,000 staff and its headquarters are situated in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Aside from the Volkswagen brand, Volkswagen group also owns Audi, Bentley Motors, Bugatti Auotmobiles, Lamborghini, SEAT, Skoda, and heavy goods manufacturer Scania.

The company was originally founded in 1937. In the 1930s, the average German could not afford a car. Most of the auto industry was composed of luxury models, and so the Volkswagen (which literally translates to “People’s car” ) was created to satisfy this market.

Trademarks

Volkswagen is the most successful multibrand group in the automotive industry. The Group consists of nine brands from seven European countries: Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Audi, Škoda, SEAT, Bentley, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Scania, Bugatti and Lamborghini. In addition, Volkswagen holds a 49.9% stake in Porsche Zwischenholding GmbH. Volkswagen is working towards an integrated automotive group with Porsche.

Strapline

"Das Auto"

Volkswagen’s newest advertisements have adopted the simple tagline “Das Auto”, German for “The Car”. The idea is that Volkswagen want people to think of Volkswagen when they think of cars, in the same way that people think of Coca Cola when they think of soft drinks. Unlike their previous tagline “Aus Liebe zum Automobil” (“for the love of the automobile”), “Das Auto” translates to roughly the same meaning in many of the world’s major languages.

Key people

 Dr. Martin Winterkorn, CEO

After studying metallurgy and metal physics at the University of Stuttgart, Dr. Winterkorn also received his doctorate in 1977 as a Ph.D. student at the Max-Planck-Institute for Metal Research and Metal Physics. Since March 2002, Dr. Winterkorn had been Chairman of the Board of Management of Audi AG, where he also headed the Audi brand group including the brands Lamborghini and Seat. Since January 2007, Dr. Martin Winterkorn represents the Chairman of Volkswagen AG, succeeding his predecessor Bernd Pischetsrieder.

 Hans Dieter Poetsch, CFO

Hans Dieter Poetsch,  serves as CFO of Volkswagen AG and is responsible for Finance and Controlling. Before starting his career at Volkswagen, he served as General Manager for Finance and Administration at Trumpf GmbH & Co, as well as Chairman of the Board of Management at Traub AG.