Teaming Up to Give a Historic Brand a New Edge — Volkswagen

Host: Claire Craig, Organizational Development Specialist, Adobe

Guests: Andreas Mindt, Head of Volkswagen Design, Volkswagen

Stepan Rehak, Spokesperson for Design & Concept Cars, Volkswagen

Andreas Mindt

There was a solar car race and I saw these cars moving without any noise, without any pollution. That was amazing to see that. It was like an invisible ghost that was pushing the automobiles, the race cars there. 

Stepan Rehak

We are having the cars which you will see in five, six years — so we are already living the future here with the designers. 

Claire Craig 

Hi everyone. Welcome back to The Power of Teamwork. I’m your host, Claire Craig, and today we’re talking about the future of car design. How are companies making it sustainable? And how does AI impact teamwork? Our guests today are going to give us the answers. I’m happy to welcome team Volkswagen to the show.

Here with us is Head of Design Andreas Mindt and Stepan Rehak, who leads communications for design and concept cars. Thank you both for joining us. 

Andreas Mindt

Thank you very much. And it’s a great honor for us to get the attention that we can have a chat today. 

Claire Craig 

Today, we’re going to talk a lot about how Volkswagen is centering sustainability in its designs and how AI is really playing a big role in the process.

But first, let’s share a bit about each of your journeys with our audience. You first, Stepan. 

Stepan Rehak

I actually started at Škoda as a recruiter, but then after two years the boss told me, “Let’s do the PR stuff.” And then I just joined the PR team at Škoda. Škoda is a daughter company of Volkswagen and back in 2016 I actually started to do e-mobility. I was responsible for some electric concept cars and as well for the strategy of e-mobility.

And when there was a change in Volkswagen, when Thomas Schafer and some other colleagues went to Volkswagen, they asked me to join them. I end up with Andy. I think it was a great timing because we are now doing something new, something unconventional. And we are launching a new design language, which Andy actually is going for.

And I’m happy to be here to support the design team and Andy to be seen and to be visible.  

Claire Craig 

Andy, your job seems like the fantasy of every kid who grew up playing with toy cars. So can you tell me how you got into this line of work and what led you to Volkswagen?  

Andreas Mindt

I started, when was it, ’96 at Volkswagen.

Then after two years, I left for Porsche. So I joined Porsche for a year and then I came back to Volkswagen because it was a very interesting time. A lot of projects were done. For instance, I was there, in the year ’98, I was working on a Bentley, a supercar project, which was called the Bentley Unudier that was named after the long straight in Le Mans. 

That was an amazing car. So it was a lot of fun, and I continued working then for Volkswagen. But then in the year 2014, I went to Audi to become responsible for the exterior design of all the Audis. So everything Audi you can see on the street right now is my responsibility, together with design boss Mark Lichter.

And then I went two and a half years ago to Bentley. And since then I worked for Bentley for two years. And then I had a call back here to become the design director here at Volkswagen. So it’s a big journey. And I think right now it’s a very interesting time because we have the biggest changes in industry right now.

Claire Craig 

Can you tell me a little bit more about that big change that’s happening in the industry?  

Andreas Mindt

First of all, there is electrification. So we’re going from an internal combustion engine to the electric driven or electric drivetrain. That’s first. And then the second is a smart car, of course. Just like your phone became a smartphone one time.

And, you know, there was an even bigger step and this is what is happening in the industry right now. We are not done with that. It’s on the way and nobody knows when it’s really there, when level four or five is really coming to the market. The level maybe is describing how much the car’s driving on its own.

So how high is the ability and the level is going from one to five, five is fully safe driving and one is a stupid car.  

Claire Craig 

Okay, so Stepan, tell me a little bit more as you’re going on this journey, this evolution to the next level, the future of cars, how do you work together, and how do you message this out? How do you get people on board with this idea of maybe smart cars or driving into the future like this?  

Stepan Rehak

Actually, in design, it’s very easy because the team in design is very creative and the people want to achieve something. They are driven by new things and they are, I would say even more, going into the new technologies.

So we talk to the journalists and they are a bit more traditional. But we have influencers as well. So we try to combine these new things with old-fashioned stuff and move forward. But I would say teamwork is the most important stuff to motivate the people and to get them on board and to get them moving.

I had a feeling that in the past we didn’t move so much. We’re lacking innovations, and I think now is the right time with the change to move forward and to start new things — the evolution. 

Andreas Mindt

Maybe I can add something to that. If you go to a design department and you tell the guys you can do a simple stupid car or intelligent one.

Everybody wants to do the intelligent one. If you ask them ice car or electric, everybody wants to do electric. We are always facing forward. We are dreaming about the future. We have some ideas, and we really want to work on the latest technology. And we want to push that and make it attractive looking and see the advantages rather than disadvantages.

So that’s our attitude here in the design department. It’s very interesting and we want to know about it. 

Claire Craig 

So, I have a follow-up question on that. We were talking a little bit about how much memory goes into all of Volkswagen’s cars. I told you that my first car driving to college was a Golf, and then now I’m moving up into a hot mom Audi Q8, and then a Bentley, hopefully. That’s on the list. 

But how do you marry the nostalgia of Volkswagen and all the love and care that’s gone into those designs with this forward-facing, future-thinking, electric-first type of mindset? How do you keep those two close so you don’t forget about the past but also point to the future?

Andreas Mindt

We analyzed the situation and said, “What is Volkswagen actually standing for?” We came back with three simple words, three words, how to describe Volkswagen and how to do the proper right Volkswagen. First is stable. Then it’s likable. And the third one is the secret sauce or the excitement that you have to add.

And this was true in the past, is true in the time right now, and will be relevant in the future as well. Stable was the Beetle already. Like 50 years ago, it was a very reliable car and that created our identity. And then it was very likable because it was smiling. It was not an aggressive design. I don’t mean cute or something like optimistic.

And that is our core brand value. And then, of course, we need to add something special. The Golf GTI, for instance, for us is super exciting. And it’s a standard thing. Actually, it’s the base model is just a standard car, but then you add these elements, the GTI elements, and it became an iconic thing, a really recognizable product that the people really love for their abilities.

And that is to me, the perfect product. If you combine the emotion and the practicality together, and then you have a very attractive product. And we have done this in the past, and we just have to transfer these values into the future.  

Claire Craig 

Stepan, do you think it’s easy as well? So how do you translate these values, these designs to the broader public? 

Stepan Rehak

It’s actually very easy to transfer because you just do storytelling. And this is what I like about my work, because you tell the stories about real people, about how they like their cars, what they were doing in the cars when they were young, and it’s just you connecting the history. And now, and then you create a future and this is what we are doing here in design.

We take some of the parts of the older models of the design and we transfer them into the future models. And for me, it’s very easy to then tell the story, to create the key messages, to create the pictures, and to tell the story to the public because then it’s more personal. And what we are trying to do here in Volkswagen, we are trying to re-create the love brand because we felt in the past that we are somehow disconnecting us between the customers and the brand.

So we try to, again, create a love brand so that we see these pictures like you said you were sneaking into the Volkswagen bus of your uncle and he was telling the story about his daughters, like he was driving them to the beach. And these are the stories that connect the people. 

We had the launch of the ID. Buzz, long wheelbase in California in June, and there were like 200, 250 buses. The people drove there with their buses all over the US, and there was a meeting with the buses and every single bus was different. Every single bus has a different story. And the owner had a different story.

And this is something that connects the people and the brand. And it’s easy to tell.  

Claire Craig 

What are the ways that you can get your large team to work together best? Because it is a lot of moving parts and a lot of moving pieces. So Stepan, Andy, what tips do you have for having that large team work together well? 

Andreas Mindt

Maybe I jump into that because I’m really on fire for that. It’s to me about a very simple strategy for what I told you earlier, about the stable, likable, and secret sauce. That is a very simple message. And that is a very simple strategy. And when you come together and you have this team and everybody understands the aim, the goal, then it’s so easy to do that.

But you need a simple saying. It needs to be as simple as possible. And then it’s easier for everybody to understand our direction. When you say we want to make a likable design, what does it mean for all the details, even the stitching on the seat or switches on the door or whatever? It has a meaning for all the details.

And when you say it needs to be stable first, so it needs to be reliable, and then it needs to be likable, that is really easy to do for everybody, easy to understand as well. And that was our aim. Then everybody brought his ideas to the table, and we stuck it together, and it was fitting.  

Stepan Rehak

In my case, it’s about convincing the people to work for you, to work together, that they see the result.

At the beginning, when I started here, the people were afraid to talk to me because they didn’t know what I’m doing. After the first which we did together, it was a bit hard to convince them that we had won. And that’s the concept car and that we need to sell the idea. We need to sell the future.

At the end, it turned very great. The team was amazing. They had really great ideas. And to more people you are talking to, then you see how creative and how dedicated the colleagues are. It’s just amazing. Today we had a meeting about branded goods because next year we have the GTI meeting in Wolfsburg and I asked them last week if they can join me for a meeting and they prepared a presentation already with proposals what we can have for our fans because there is a big hunger for this kind of stuff, especially for the GTI community.

So the team is amazing, and it’s just giving them something and they will give you even more. You ask them, you motivate them, and they see that we are changing, that the brand is again somehow alive and I can see that all over Volkswagen.  

Claire Craig

Stay with us. After the break, we’re going to dive into how VW is leading the charge in AI when it comes to design and communication.

We’ll be right back. 

We are back and talking with the sustainable design team about all things that are moving forward for Volkswagen. Now I want to focus on the hot topic across the globe. Let’s talk about how AI is enabling the team to do its work.  

Andreas Mindt

AI is developing at a super fast pace right now. A couple of months ago, we discovered that you can create artificial pictures and artificial designs if you want or in a very high quality.

And then now we discover that you can jump from 2D into 3D as well with the help of AI. But there are still some fundamental questions to answer. The first question is artificial intelligence collecting stuff in the grid or on the net and sticking it together in a new way because you only take what you know already and stick it together.

The second question is how we as humans act on that. Do we do the same thing? Because I saw something here, something there, I stick it together and I have a new design. Or I get impressed or motivated by a new plane I saw somewhere and I put elements of the plane into a car for the first time. And that, how creative is that?

Or can an AI do the same thing, just like a human? And that is another, or my second big question right now. And it can’t be answered at the moment. I think we are on the way to find out.  

Claire Craig

Can I ask you a little bit more about that? So can you break down the different jobs and roles that your design team does?

So just tell me about the tasks they perform and then maybe what insights AI could help them with.  

Andreas Mindt

First of all, we can take the material we have and create derivatives very easily with AI. When you start with simple things like wheel designs, it’s very simple because you have a circle and inside the circle you have bolts and holes for the brakes and so you can do a lot of these prompts already.

We are in the middle of big discussions even with our legal department, and that is really interesting. It’s happening right now, and we are not done with it.

Claire Craig

I think that’s so fascinating and you have to know the right prompts to put in, and I love the idea of letting your strategy drive some of those prompts too.

That’s the first time I’ve heard that as well. Now, Stepan, at a company level, how does AI really support growth and collaboration?  

Stepan Rehak

So for us, the discussion around what are we doing the right way, so the AI is helping us to move us towards the goal that we can communicate efficiently and properly. So there is a great potential where we are a bit weaker, which is social media and where we have to push.

So the AI is actually helping us. I am not that much involved in the writing stuff, like press releases or press kits and text, but I think our colleagues, when I talk to them, they will tell me we are using some stuff for writing stuff or for writing briefings or something like that with the AI. So in terms of communication I think it’s rather easier than the design, I would say.

Claire Craig

I think that’s good insight. Now, Andy, we hear a lot when we talk about AI with different companies. Since there’s so much unknown, it feels a little scary and it feels like almost sci-fi-esque where people think, “Oh, are robots coming to take my job?” What would you say to people who work in a design field that maybe have some fear around AI taking their role? What is the human side to AI that you see?  

Andreas Mindt

First of all, I have to say it’s a tool. It should be considered as a tool. Just when we discovered the smartphone, it’s a great tool. And with AI, it’s the same thing. You wouldn’t rather want to sit on the side where we put the prompts in and not on the other side.

And maybe if you compare our life with 200 years ago, we were washing our clothes on the river. It was a very painful process. Now we have washing machines. Our life is way better right now. And the electric cars as well. You know, it’s great what we have now and we can improve our life. And if you’re scared, then we miss opportunities. 

Claire Craig

I love that. We’re going to take a quick break, but I’m really excited about this next segment because we’re going to talk all about the future at VW and really how their team is at the cutting edge of design. 

Welcome back to The Power of Teamwork. I am here with Stepan and Andy, and we are talking about all things future of cars and design at Volkswagen. 

Now, Andy, I want to talk a little bit more about that change. When did you know that the future of car design needed to really make that change towards sustainability?

Andreas Mindt

Sustainability is super important for me. I learned at a very early age that it has a very high value. I remember I went when I was 12 years old, I went with my father to Hamburg and we went to a solar car rally. It was a solar car race, and I saw these cars moving without any noise, without any pollution.

It was amazing to see that. It was like an invisible ghost that was pushing the automobiles there, or the race cars there. It had a strong impact in early age on me to see that the sun actually can propel a car or race car in that case and move it forward. It’s so effortless and that is a really strong experience I had when I was 12 years old and since then I was thinking about how to get this.

One day it will be normal and that is what you can see right now. The breakthrough came maybe 10 years ago or eight years ago when the first electric cars came along with a new battery technology that made it really reasonable or achievable that long range can be done in standard cars and that we can have it in our everyday life.

We see all the advantages that we have right now with that.  

Claire Craig

So this one is going to go to you first, Stepan. I want to talk a little bit more about the challenges that you might have run into sharing that Volkswagen sustainability story with the broader public. Have you run into any difficulties with that? 

Stepan Rehak

Plenty of difficulties. I actually started in Škoda when we did the first concept car, the Vision E, we launched it in Shanghai back in 2016 or ’17. We went there with the journalists and to China where already electric cars were normal and the skepticism of the journalists, of the public, it was a bit more difficult to push, but I think we’ve worked hard to emphasize the sustainability and the world of sustainability and the drive, but still it’s discussion about infrastructure, it’s discussion about if the batteries are sustainable, how we produce the batteries, how we produce the electricity. And this is ongoing. Of course we need to add more charging stations. I think there are still some challenges, but we are on a good way.

And of course the cars, not every car is affordable. We at Volkswagen are working as well on the affordable cars, which will come in one or two years with the ID. Two, which we show in Humboldt. I think the people will love it because to drive the electric, I think it’s the best feeling ever you can have because you are just floating and the acceleration is then it’s amazing feeling I have to say.

Claire Craig

Andy was saying it’s like ghost driving.  

Andreas Mindt

Exactly. When we go to smaller segments in our market here in Europe, it’s a different situation, but it’s a more reasonably priced car. It’s easier to achieve for a broader audience. And we see our part in that to offer a broad audience a nice car, which is very reasonable.

And that is our aim. That is our role as well. This is where Volkswagen was always strong — to bring mobility to a broader audience, and now we do it with electric mobility. Another thing is usually when you talk about sustainability, you have to consider that first you have to build a car, then second, you have to drive a car, and then third is you have to recycle a car.

And the first part is to make it as good as possible for environmental reasons to not to pollute anything to be as good as possible. But the biggest part of using a car is actually driving a car, the usage, the time, the second phase where you drive a car. In the situation that we have here in Germany, it’s getting better and better.

So all the mathematics we have done is based on older status where we had 30% of renewables. Now we have almost 60%. Yeah. Then of course you need to recycle that. And the best case is doing the cradle-to-cradle idea that we create stuff where it’s made from the original. And to achieve that is the highest art, and this is what we are aiming for in total.

So we are very aware of all the three phases of a product, and we have to be good in all of them.  

Claire Craig

I agree. I think we are all on board with the electric future that we see for cars. Andy, when you think about that future, what do you see as some major roadblocks to progress?  

Andreas Mindt

Actually, I can’t see a lot of them. Of course, we always talk about cost. Battery needs to be cheap and needs to be easy to produce. In the end, we design, we are not doing a sculpture. We are doing a product and we have to think and consider everything to get a great product, which is easy to produce and sustainable. I can learn a lot in the process, and it’s really great.

I can’t see roadblocks.  

Stepan Rehak

I would definitely agree because you don’t see roadblocks, you see just the challenges and the challenges in your life because without challenges, life is boring. So sometimes we take on challenges just to make life exciting.  

Claire Craig

I agree. And I like that reframing, right? It’s not a roadblock. It’s a challenge. And those are things that are essential to get to the next level of any kind of progress and growth forward. So when we’re thinking about the future, I want to zero in on a specific example. So I’m thinking about maybe the Beetle or the bus or the GTI. Can you walk me through an example of your team transforming one of these cars into an electric car for the future?

Can you walk me through that process? 

Andreas Mindt

That’s a very good point. We just did it with the ID.2 GTI. So we took all the excitement of the GTI of the past and transformed that into the future. And for instance, the GTI meaning is Gran Turismo Injection. Injection came from the ICE combustion, the combustion engine technology, and this is gone now.

This is not the case anymore. So we had to transform that. And in the process, we use a little flash, you know, instead of the eye to say, this is our electrical flash now, this is our new power. And that was just an example for how we treated the whole thing to really take the excitement, take the strategy that we had in the past.

Stepan Rehak

Actually, when we are talking about the DGI, that was my first project in Volkswagen and to re-create such an icon, it was learning as well for me, what is the history, where it comes from. And when I moved to Germany half a year ago, in my neighborhood, there were, I think, five or six GTIs. I was like, everyone has a GTI here.

Everyone is actually driving GTIs. And I think with the GTI concept, we just proved that we can have the history transferred into the new. I think it will be a huge success.  

Claire Craig

I agree. So both of you are at the forefront of this forward movement for cars. What do you think is next, first of all, and then how do you keep the customer base interested as a team? 

Andreas Mindt

I really believe, first of all, in this CO2-neutral thing. So we have to make it neutral in the next step. That’s a big task. And as I explained earlier, in all the three phases, we have to realize that it’s a lot of work, but we are on the way. That’s maybe part one. Part two would be great fun for me if we use the car as a big battery.

So if we have bidirectional charging, then we are able to take energy out of the grid and put it back into the grid. And the price is changing a lot in the grid. Sometimes at night the energy is very cheap, and sometimes a day the energy is very expensive. So just imagine that your car can make money for you.

It could be an amazing thing that sustainability is not only good for nature, it’s very good for the total cost of ownership that we heard earlier, that the electric car can maybe improve your life. That’s a goal for a lot of people. Yeah, that’s struggling nowadays with high energy costs or, you know, there’s so many uncertainties in society right now.

And maybe we can give stability here as well and give them a product that makes their life easier that you can power your house with a big battery that you have in your car.  

Stepan Rehak

Actually, when you were talking that we see the future, actually, my desk is just next to the hall where we are having the cars which you will see in five, six years, so we are already living the future here with the designers, and then we are talking about the interior, about how sustainable the interior can be, how what materials we are using, if we are using materials that were already used, recycled, and how do we recycle the battery. 

So it’s really interesting and this focus was not there when we had these combustion engines. Ten, 20, 30 years ago we were talking as well to the agriculture community, how we can use the stuff that they are producing on the fields, for example, sugarcane, and we were using some of the sugarcane stuff into the mats in the car, etc.

There are a lot of opportunities how to use sustainable stuff in the cars in the future, and I think it will help the environment as well.  

Claire Craig

I want to talk a little bit more about just how your teams collaborate together. I think from an external perspective, we have a lot of people listening who are in creative fields, maybe in design, and they want to know how to work more closely with their communications team to really have a clear messaging.

Stepan, any tips or stories that you would share with the audience on how to really work together as a team with a team like Andy’s? 

Stepan Rehak

It’s funny, I just had a discussion, and this is maybe just my feeling, maybe some people will agree. I just prefer to be with the people in the office, just talk to them, because we are doing business, but I will not make any business on Teams because I need to talk to the people, I need to talk to them when I’m having coffee, when I go with them for lunch, and be curious about what they are doing, what they are working on, and what is their passion, what is their motivation.

Ask them the questions and without the team, without the people, without the resources, I will not be able to do it. 

Andreas Mindt

That’s absolutely right. What Stepan said is you need to have a proper dialogue. In my eyes, that’s the key to teamwork. A dialogue means you say something, but then you listen and then again you say something.

So this kind of dialogue is key, absolutely. And when you do it the proper way, when you listen to everybody and when you collect that together and build your own opinion and give your opinion to others, that’s a proper exchange. You need to make this exchange just like in a brainstorming. In a brainstorm you do, you put one on top of the other information and this is how it works.

And this is how a team result can be achieved when we have a proper dialogue.  

Claire Craig

I think to your point, Stepan, earlier, this is how you build trust on a team as well. You said when you first came in, there wasn’t a lot of established trust in you necessarily, but those small, we call them casual collisions, right?

Those conversations that happen without trying to make them happen. That’s how you develop that trust and that relationship so that you can look at those challenges, not as roadblocks, but work through them together. So I really like that. And I think that’s really key to having a successful team. How do you think Volkswagen as a company and brand embodies the spirit of teamwork?

And what’s something that each of you has learned working on this team?  

Andreas Mindt

I really believe it’s a great strength. If we act as a team, it’s really tough times right now because new competition is entering the market. So we have to be really good right now. And the only chance for us is to work in this team to guide a proper dialogue, listening to everybody.

We have to listen to that, listen to customers as well. I see the customers as part of the team and listen to that and to improve the stuff that we are doing.  

Stepan Rehak

When Thomas Schaeffer, the CEO of Volkswagen brand joined ŠKODA, he was going through some difficult times, but his spirit and the way he leads people, he is really a team player.

So if you have a good team, which I believe we have, you stick together and you work hard, then this company will have a great future.  

Claire Craig

Thank you both so much for being here and talking with us and sharing your insights. I’ve learned so much about the culture of Volkswagen and how that infuses into everything that you do, into the teams that you build, into having those North Star focuses that each of you can rally around.

How you’re really pushing the envelope when it comes to AI and sustainability and staying at the forefront of the industry. And I’m really excited to see what’s next for both of you and what’s next for Volkswagen. 

Andreas Mindt

Thank you very much. 

Stepan Rehak

Thank you very much.