Tesla owner Elon Musk turned out to be an unexpected guest at a Volkswagen AG conference via a video call post an invitation from the German carmaker’s CEO Herbert Diess. Addressing the 200 VW executives present, he spoke about VW’s pivot to electric vehicles, his own management style, and supply chain and production issues.
The VW managers gathering took place in Alpbach, Austria. Musk, praising its major competitor on a global scale, mentioned that he is “sure the German auto brand will master the move to electric vehicles.”
“Happy to hear that even our strongest competitor thinks that we will succeed (in) the transition if we drive the transformation with full power,” Diess said on Linkedin. He also added in the LinkedIn post that Volkswagen needs a new mindset to take on the new competition.
Volkswagen is currently striving to achieve global domination in the field of electric vehicles. The automaker group, across its subsidiary brands, has already structured plans to launch several products with wide-ranging capacities in the EV space. The German company has pitted its largest plant against Tesla’s Berlin Gigafactory. At the conference, he urged VW executives to make that transformation to electric mobility as soon as possible.
Talking about his own company, Elon Musk addressed at the conference that Tesla is more agile than other automakers because of his “management style where he’s first and foremost an engineer”. Musk also said he’s fascinated by supply chains, logistics and production processes.
Diess on the other hand praised Tesla’s handling of the global chip crisis. Tesla was able to switch to different chips in a mere two to three weeks as it rewrote the software to allow for a switch from one type of microchip, which went out of stock, to another.
In a tweet on Saturday, Diess said that VW, which has emerged as the main contender to Tesla for global electric vehicle supremacy, would continue its dialogue with Tesla.
“We will visit you soon in Gruenheide,” the CEO added.
Last month Diess had warned that the planned opening of Tesla’s car factory at Gruenheide near Berlin, the company’s first in Europe, will force local industries to step up their game against the fast-growing U.S. electric vehicle maker.
Tesla is awaiting final building approval for the 5.8 billion euro ($6.8 billion) German site. VW, in turn, plans to build six large battery factories in Europe by 2030 as part of an all-in bet on electric mobility.