Behind VW'S Plan To Sell Bugatti: "Internal" Brand Reconstruction With Left Hand Inverted Right Hand?

What is man's romance?

The answer is bound to be LEGO series model, and the popular product in this series is undoubtedly Bugatti Chilon.

Victim: Gaddy?

However, the legend of Bugatti may not last long.

A few days ago, a number of media, including car magazine of the UK, Germany's South Germany daily and manager magazine, reported that the Volkswagen Group is planning to sell its luxury super running brand Bugatti.

As of press release, buchadi and Volkswagen Group officials in Morse, France, declined to comment on such reports.

According to the German local media quoting insiders of the Volkswagen Group, the plan to sell the Bugatti brand has been approved by the VW board of directors, and the only thing lacking is the final approval of the Volkswagen board of supervisors. As for bugadi's next home, rimac automobili, an electric overtaking manufacturer based in Zagreb, the Croatian capital, will be the next home.

Although rimac automobili, located in a corner of Eastern Europe, has had limited public exposure since its establishment in 2009, its first electric super running concept The total output of one after its launch in 2011 was only 8, but it is not without warning that the new car maker will be able to stand out among a large number of electric vehicle start-ups after Tesla became famous, and become a potential buyer of Bugatti.

On the one hand, rimac automobili and the Volkswagen Group have already had a business intersection. Among them, Bugatti not only broke out in 2018 that he had planned to jointly develop electric super running with rimac automobile, and its founder mate rimac himself had visited Bugatti's MorseMe headquarters for many times to visit the latter's manufacturing process.

VW's Porsche acquired 10% of the shares of rimac Automotive in June 2018, and further increased its shareholding ratio to 15.5% in 2019. So far, Porsche has become the second largest shareholder after mate rimac, the founder of the new car making force. Other major shareholders of rimac automotive include Hyundai, Magna and camel group, a Chinese battery manufacturer.

The presence of Porsche also enables VW to maintain its influence on the Bugatti brand even after it is sold. As a result, the deal is also seen by the outside world as a "internal" brand structure change.

On the other hand, for Porsche, giving Bugatti as a betrothal gift to rimac automobile is also an important investment for Porsche to acquire a new brand and new technology of pure electric overtaking.

Rimac automobili, with more than 600 engineers, has accumulated technology in the fields of high-efficiency battery pack configuration and power density improvement, and has also cooperated with Hyundai and Kia in the past. As a result, the company hopes to raise its stake further to 49% at the expense of Bugatti. After all, for rimac automobili, which is valued at 500 million pounds, there is clearly not enough cash to eat Bugatti, which is valued at 500 million euros.

For Volkswagen Group, Bugatti's market positioning of being too small and its brand image of emphasizing high-power internal combustion engine do not match the group's electric transformation strategy.

According to the data of Volkswagen Group's annual report in 2019, only 82 sets were sold in Bugatti Chiron that year. As for the previous generation of Bugatti, that is, the famous Bugatti Veyron, has always been known as the loss king among the major models in Europe. According to a survey by Bernstein financial consulting, each sale of a Bugatti Veyron means a loss of $6.27 million.

And in a continent that is increasingly emphasizing climate change and electric transformation, Bugatti's constantly refreshing beautiful data is becoming less flattering. In early March, Bugatti launched the pure sport. Compared with its astonishing 16 cylinder 1500 HP data, what is more eye-catching is its 516 g / km / kg carbon emissions. The carbon emission red line set by the European Commission for all EU car companies is only 95g / kmkg.

Volkswagen group turns around

In fact, Bugatti is not the only luxury sub brand in the Volkswagen group that has been exposed for sale. It has been speculated that the Italian brand of Bentley and Bentley will be abandoned by the outside world. The source of these rumors is precisely from an ambiguous speech made by Herbert DIS, CEO of Volkswagen Group in 2018: "it is conceivable to strip (some brands), and the same is true for expansion (brand and business)"

Although disco has focused on the group's electric and digital transformation in recent years, and it has not made a deeper explanation on the group's brand strategy and business strategy, the frequent actions of Volkswagen Group in recent years seem to confirm that dis's statement is not just a slogan.

Previously, after the ambiguous brand strategy of DIS, Volkswagen group had planned to re divide its more than ten sub brands into four new companies. The four new subsidiaries will focus on super premium, premium, volumn and commercial models. Among them, super luxury models include Bugatti, Bentley and Porsche, luxury models include Audi, Lamborghini and Ducati, while the remaining Volkswagen brands, Skoda and SIAT are mass production models.

Although this adjustment plan of dis has not been promoted, at least the extensive adjustment of Volkswagen Group in commercial vehicle business proves that the plan has not been completely abandoned. In May 2018, Volkswagen's bus and bus business unit was renamed traton se, which was officially listed in Munich independently. Meanwhile, Mann and Scania of Volkswagen are directly responsible to traton se.

In addition, not long ago, on September 16, German "manager magazine" quoted insiders of Volkswagen Group as saying that Volkswagen was planning to acquire 15% of the shares of sixt, Germany's largest car rental company, and part of the equity of Europcar, one of Europe's largest car rental companies, in order to enter the car rental business.

If we say that entering the car rental trade business is adding, then the first subtraction item in the subtraction process of Volkswagen Group may be Bugatti.

Apart from being inconsistent with VW's electric digital transformation strategy and the fact that the group can still control Bugatti through Porsche, the most likely non-commercial reason for Bugatti's abandonment is that the decision of Volkswagen Group to acquire Bugatti in 1998 was almost dominated by Ferdinand Piech, the leader of the Piech family, representing the majority shareholder. As the largest shareholder of the Volkswagen Group, the Piech family holds more than half of the shares of the Volkswagen Group through the Porsche holding company, while Ferdinand Piech himself has served as chairman of the board of directors, chairman of the board of supervisors and other positions.

However, since the death of Ferdinand Piech in 2019, the new generation of piyesh family speakers who are busy with infighting not only lack of obsession with luxury brands such as Bugatti, but also have repeatedly expressed their full support for the electric digital transformation plan of the group's board of directors led by dis.

The plan to replace Bugatti with rimac automobili and actually strengthen the deal of the Porsche brand is undoubtedly a compromise between the board of directors of the group and taking into account the face of the Porsche family and the Piech family.