BERLIN — Herbert Diess, who was chosen to lead Volkswagen after the costly and embarrassing diesel emissions scandal and bring the company into the electric age, is stepping down. The giant automaker said Friday he would leave at the end of August, without giving a reason for his departure.
He will be succeeded on Sept. 1 by Oliver Blume, the chief executive of Porsche, the company’s supervisory board said.
“Herbert Diess played a key role in driving forward the transformation of the company,” Hans Dieter Pötsch, chairman of the board, said in a statement in which he thanked Mr. Diess for pushing the company’s move into electric vehicles.
Hours before the announcement was made late Friday afternoon in Germany, Mr. Diess, 63, posted on his social media channels thanking VW employees for their work in the first half of the year and wishing them a good vacation. He made no mention of his impending departure.
“After a really stressful first half of 2022 many of us are looking forward to a well-deserved summer break,” he said.
Mr. Diess’s future at Volkswagen has been in doubt on multiple occasions during his four-year stint as chief executive. Last autumn, he clashed with the company’s powerful works council about his electrification strategy and management style. He often pointed to Tesla, the all-electric automaker that recently opened an assembly plant outside of Berlin, as a model for VW’s future, a move that unnerved some company veterans.
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