Sept. 5, 2026 | Weekend Drive: VW’s Future Plan 2030; Ford’s quality surge

0:00Welcome to this weekend drive edition of Daily Drive for the first week of September 2026. I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas this past week. Volkswagen's board approved a sweeping new restructuring plan, but kicked the biggest cans down the road. Ford is trying to mount a remarkable quality turnaround. And one of our own here on Weekend Drive made the case that Toyota should build something extra alongside its massive new Texas plant. With me today are two of our finest journalists here at Automotive News. I just want to laugh every time I say that. Larry Belacquez covers Toyota, Mazda, and Subaru for us. I'm going to laugh for us. Thank you. Thank you. Larry Legend, sir. Welcome back. Thanks, Kellan. And Michael Martinez who was for the UAW. Mike, welcome, sir. Thanks for having me. I think you're the finest journalists that's here. Larry and I, it's debatable. All right, let's get into it. So first up, Volkswagen just got its supervisory board to unanimously approve a major overhaul,

1:06but reading the fine print, a lot of the hardest calls are still to come. Now Larry, give us the broad strokes of what this approval means and what decisions still need to be made in the future. Yeah, so the broad strokes, this was a really unexpected outcome that the supervisory board. There was a giant fight looming between labor who has labor and lower Saxony and the business interests on Volkswagen's supervisory board and that they reached a decision to go forward with CEO Oliver Blumas plan, albeit a unanimous decision, but the devil is in the details because part of what they've agreed to is basically to put off any kind of hard decisions until at least next year, if not further down the road, which is if I were an investor, and some of the investor notes that I saw is, oh, there's no, you know, there's not

2:10going to be a fight. So this is great. There's not going to be a fight. But all of the problems that under that underlie what Blumma was was working towards, the reason that he was proposing these plans, none of them really got direct, you know, addressed head on. So they've, they've just, as you said, kicked the can down the road. They're going to sleep on it a little bit more of it. They have some job cuts that they're going to make the four, four German plants that they were going to close. They've decided to maybe they'll try to find some other use for them. So that's, you know, that's one big tough, tough thing that they, you know, that they've put off. Some of the, they've talked about, well, we're going to an overview basis. We're going to cut our number of models. We're going to limit our bureaucracy. All things that sound really good on paper in which VW is very, really has in the past, very rarely actually done.

3:11So this is a, you know, it puts off the fight, but it just puts it off. They're not taking the hard medicine that they needed to do. Mike now the board approved this unanimously, which is generally surprising given how publicly contentious this fight has been. What does that tell you about where VW's power structure actually landed? Well, T'Larry's point, kicked the can down the road, whatever you want to say. It seems like there's a truce right now amongst the stakeholders in this power structure. VW, like you said, Lois Haxony, the union over there, Iggy Mattal, they're going to have something to say when the details of these job cuts are released. What type of severance or early retirement buyouts our workers are going to get if at all, how many of these layoffs or firings will occur in Europe versus China, same with the plant closures, well, they find other work for these workers by converting it into a

4:15military vehicle facility, for example. So the fact that everybody expected a fight and didn't get one now is great, but it doesn't mean there's not going to be a fight in 2027 and beyond. As Lairry said, this just sort of shifted some of the decision making until then. You would think that if those stakeholders, like the union and the government and the workers and everybody didn't get some assurances that things would go their way in the future, they wouldn't have signed off today. I don't have either of us don't have reporting on that. I'm just speaking logically, right? So you would think maybe there is some type of understanding between the parties that these aren't just going to be really bad cuts and really bad closures that they will throw the unions and the workers a bonus, so to speak, in the future, because if they didn't

5:15get those assurances from VW, I don't know why they would have signed off on it today, but there's still likely going to be a fight just down the road. We got to just point out here that one of the things that they're looking at, and Mike had in the reference to it, one of the things that they're looking at as a, perhaps a savior in this, is increased German defense spending, right? German, basically German rearmament. We've been down this road a couple of times. Maybe this will be different, right? Right. There was this World War one time. Yeah, a couple. Been down this road a couple of times with maybe eight, third times a charm, right? Oh, man, that's so bad. Okay, I'm sorry. Good to do you, Larry. Yeah, that's okay. Actually, it is actually an option because Germany is greatly increased its defense spending

6:19in recent months to Germany. Now a proud member of NATO, right? Greatly increased its defense spending. There is perhaps some room for these four plants. These plants are not all in the heart of Germany. We're not talking about Wolfsburg, which is Wolfsburg's original plant. These are in Zwickau, in Hamburg, the Audi plant in Nakherslam, right? I think is how it's pronounced in Emden. There are some fundamental problems with Volkswagen, right? There have been problems with Volkswagen for a very long time. It takes Volkswagen a very long time to get products to market as we saw what the ID was, which it rolled out at an auto show in Detroit in 2017 and teased it for the next five years

7:25before it was actually available. They have a very, very, very large employment structure. They make nine million cars. They have way more employees than Toyota, which makes 11 million. They have a number of employees globally that is basically equal to Stellantis General Motors and Ford combined. It's about 600,000 workers globally. They have some real fundamental problems because they were heavily invested in China. They made a lot of money in China for decades. Then the Chinese automakers grew up and took their own market back and put these guys on the outs. These are some fundamental issues and they're going to have to be addressed at some point. Now Larry from a competitive standpoint, VW said that it's going to refocus North America on its most profitable segments, but won't say which ones. What does that tell you? That tells me that the Atlas is probably not going away.

8:28The Atlas Crossport is probably not going away. What it doesn't tell me is anything about Scout, which again, it's no part of VW Group, maybe not Volkswagen of America, but they need to refocus in North America. They need more than these products, the two atlases and the TIG-1. They need a broader product range in the US. They needed to pick up 20 years ago. They needed to pick up almost 30 years ago. They never got around to doing it. They focused on other things. When they did get around to doing it, they didn't give it to their VW dealers. We've read for years about the relationship, the sourd relationship between VW dealers and VW management. They're going to have to turn that around first. Mike, you've got a fresh story out this weekend on autonus.com about Ford's attempt to make

9:32a remarkable quality turnaround. We recently talked about its ranking on JD Powers initial quality study. What's new on that front? It's interesting because that whole push to be number one in the IQS rankings happened over a three, four year span. I think they were 23rd, three years ago. Really it hinges on a very simple concept about elevating the experts and letting the experts make the decisions on vehicle development. What I mean by that is they have a group of engineers that they call technical specialists that specialize on a particular vehicle component or part. Somebody that just handles wiring. Somebody that just handles restraints like seat belts and airbags for every vehicle line. They have those guys now sprinkled throughout the company to test and diagnose issues before

10:33they arise and before products get sent off to dealerships. Take a step back and you think this all seems pretty simple. Of course you would do that. It wasn't so simple for Ford because I think the picture that is emerging now that we're almost a decade removed from it. I want you guys to go back for a second with me. 2017, 2018, 2019. The CEO of Ford at the time was Jim Hackett and the company was really trying to reorganize and get more fit. That's the term he used. Some old swigons trying to do now. We see this cyclically happen with automakers all the time. He instituted what he called smart redesign, which basically meant $11 billion restructuring and thousands and thousands of salary job cuts. But the issue was that investors or folks with Ford didn't see at the time. They were letting go of a lot of senior people including in product development.

11:38What's the result of that? You have more junior people handling vehicle programs. You see issues start to creep up. Ford didn't have the expertise to deal with them. It was playing whack-a-mole when problems came up, finding them and fixing them versus tearing out the root of the problem from the beginning. This is Jim Farley's admission that maybe those cuts at the end of last decade went too far and they're trying to change that. They have hired, I think, 350 technical specialists over the past three years, either from outside the company or rehiring from within. They call them graybeards because of the experience that they have. They're not all old. It was sort of erroneously reported. And I even mentioned this on the show a few months ago that they had rehired some former employees. That wasn't necessarily the case. It was just that they re-emphasized the expertise and the position that they used to place an

12:40emphasis on before the smart redesign at the end of the last decade. It's paying dividends. They're number one JD Power IQS. Obviously, a lot of work still to do. They still lead the league, so to speak, and recalls. But some progress is being made and now we know a big factor as to why. You know, it's funny that I read Mike's story and you get the sense from reading Mike's story that, okay, they're admitting a mistake. The one thing that I didn't notice, and Mike, maybe you're going to address it here, is they have these experts. Did they empower them to make decisions and to spend money? Yes. So that's part of this process, right? It's because Ford is as bad as any major corporation in America today, and that it's so siloed and so difficult to make decisions, right? But they sort of have these technical specialists, the jargon is cross-functional, right?

13:42That they are able to work across the different teams, manufacturing, supply chain, design, whatever it is. And they're empowered to make these decisions, to point out these flaws, to use their experience from prior programs, to use their experience from talking directly with customers, and utilizing AI and data to say, hey, this isn't going to work. You guys need to go back to the drawing board, or you guys need to go talk to the supplier, whatever it may be, to make that change. So the technical specialists sort of exist outside of an F-150 product development engineer, a Mustang product development engineer, right? These guys sort of hover over everything, whereas the less specialized workers, engineers, designers, et cetera, can focus on the weekly and monthly deadlines. That they have to meet. And these specialists can do the heavy lifting on some of the major issues, get them corrected

14:43quickly, so the other folks can meet those deadlines. For those that don't know, doing a vehicle gets planned, right? A product planering exercise for a vehicle. The best way to describe it, it's a multi-year process. And it is really nothing more than multi years of compromise, right? You have engineers who, and marketing, who, they believe that the vehicle should be one way. Sales wants it another way to keep the price down. So by the time the product actually gets in front of consumers, it is literally compromised a thousand different ways, right? And you hope that at the end of it, that compromise vehicle is what hits in the marketplace, and that it's not too compromised, and it kind of checks, still checks all the boxes,

15:45and it's successful. And what Ford is doing here is saying, if I am, it might correct me if I'm wrong, you're saying that these experts are empowered to go back and uncompromise things, right? So I'll give you an example. In the story I talked to a specialist that works on rear closures, lift gates, cargo doors, tailgates, et cetera. And one of the things he said, I don't know if it was necessarily in the story, but one of his jobs, he mentioned commercial vehicles as well, and transit vans. In the back doors, on transit vans, he said, get slammed hundreds of times a day if they're owned by a business. So it's going and telling the rest of the company, maybe, hey, we need more heavy-duty hinges or we need more heavy-duty materials here because this is exactly how the product is being used. And if we do compromise on X, Y, or Z, you're going to have failure on A, B, and C components,

16:50right? So using what they know in terms of their expertise and how the customer actually uses it to better educate the rest of the folks in the company. Well, I'd see how this works. And Larry, Toyota has long been the quality gold standard. Does Ford cracking the top of JD power actually change the competitive conversation or is initial quality just one part of a much bigger picture? The EQS study is very interesting because of what it measures, right? It largely measures, OK, are things as you expected them. You're talking to consumers. Consumer buys a vehicle. They say, OK, are things as you expected them after X amount of time? Generally, as a rule, IQS is usually dominated by automakers that have older model lines, right? The lack of, I guess, lack of new technology generally translates to better scores on the

17:57IQS. Because as soon as somebody tries something new and it doesn't, you know, it doesn't meet a customer's, how a customer thinks it's supposed to work or it doesn't get demonstrated by the properly by the salesperson delivering the vehicle at the dealership. And then they get surveyed and they're like, well, I don't understand how the thing works. I wasn't explained to me. Those all get measured into IQS. But we should remember now, while Ford moved up dramatically in this and they should be lauded for that. Kia has won this before, Toyota has won this before. And you think even, I think even Dodger wrote one this before, right? Not too long ago. It's an interesting measure. I don't know how useful it is long term. But you know, it's something that allows them to dig in, certainly brag about it. Toyota right now is going through its own quality issues with an engine recall for Tundra and some other vehicles that they have just, it's just been perplexing.

18:58And we talked about that several months ago. They have their own quality issues. They were the former gold standard luxury name plates generally do, you know, they fare better than mass market name plates. But it really, it's an incomplete assessment of what quality is, the IQS study. I would just say quickly that, yeah, it's one factor in a multi factor quality experience. But it's notable for Ford because in the recent past, they have bungled so many launches. Super duty, Explorer, Bronco, go on and on down the list. So the fact that to sink. Sure. Yeah, with the infotainment system. But the fact that they are now top set that initial quality, which they have struggled mightily with is really a feather in their cap and a testament to they are warning how to fix things before those new models. Because let's be honest, there's always going to be dozens of problems on any new model,

20:04right? So the struggle of ramping up production on a vehicle redesign or an introduction. But the fact that Ford has figured out how to solve most things before they become an issue is pretty notable quality's been job one for a while. And finally, Larry, you spent the week making the case that Toyota should spend even more money on a plant. It hasn't even opened yet. What's the story there, sir? We haven't even started building it yet. Toyota is going to take $3.6 billion, build a new Tacoma line and it's plant in San Antonio. And so what I argued this week, and I'm going to say it upfront, it is presumptuous for me to tell the largest automaker in the world, one of the most successful companies in the world, what did I do? I'll say that right up front. Drawing out a past experience of mine, what my story argues is that Toyota needs to take

21:06a kaisen from Stalantis. They need to learn a lesson from Stalantis. And as part of this new move to put Tacoma back in San Antonio, to build a post assembly area where they can upfit Tundra and Tacomas and Sequoias coming off those lines in San Antonio. Similar to what Jeep does at its plant here, my hometown of Toledo, pardon me, Mike and my hometown of Toledo. It's this week, we both come from here. Thanks for that. Mike hates standing on that. I know. That's too because he's from there. I don't have to drag him back home. Anyway. So, I'm going to put this facility in perspective for you. This is the MoPAR customization shop.

22:08It's located about an eighth of a mile away from the plant that makes the, both the Wrangler and the gladiator. They are upfitting anywhere between 400 and 800 of these vehicles on any given day. Right. They are, they have access, they're selling accessories into those vehicles and putting them on between 400 and 800 vehicles any given day before they're shipped off to the dealer. That has a massive amount of extra income that the automaker is getting, that the dealer is earning and that benefits the customer who ordered it in the first place. This is stuff that they wanted that doesn't, that's not going to throw their warranty, you know, reject their warranty because it's certified. It's going to come on the Monroe, they're able to finance it. These are really the rare win, win, win in this industry, right?

23:13And it doesn't cost a whole heck of a lot more than an extra building to run this. And it's, it's, it's white space for Toyota. They are dabbling in accessories. Their accessory sales have doubled since 2021, but they pale compared to what Stellantis does here. Stellantis has seven of these across the globe, mostly in North America, seven of these centers now. And they are customizing 55% of every vehicle that they sell in the United States, putting accessories on. That is a crazy figure. These are not, you know, some of these are not small accessories. These are, it's everything from stickers and obviously the, the law and stuff, which is the floor mats to running boards and lift kits and, you know, things that are, you know, bedliners, things that can be done at the factory.

24:19It's just that it's a no brainer. And I use this because they're, you know, there are very few things that people in this industry would look at Toyota and Stellantis and go, oh, hey, here's, here's a place where Toyota could learn a lesson from Stellantis, right? But this is it. This is, this is a place where they are the, they are the king of this area. It's Stellantis's. So it's a place for them to pay attention. Now Mike, from where you sit, Ford has its own accessory business and dealers are always looking for margin. Does the Stellantis model actually translate or is it harder to replicate than it looks? Yeah, that's a good point. Ford is discovering or has discovered the type of money they can make on accessories since they reintroduced the Bronco and their dealers are making a lot of money on those accessories. It can be hard to replicate only because a lot of companies already have these plants,

25:22these sites fully baked and yet can't really add on to them or next to them. So that's the beauty of Larry's idea is that Toyota really has an opportunity here to do something from the ground up. If they're going to do it, this is really the only opportunity for them to. So I would say, Kel, that it's only difficult for others to replicate because let's be honest, most automakers have something in the off-road space that a lot of folks like to accessorize if they're going off-roading on a dirt course or on a track somewhere or even with pickups. Those tend to be the two vehicles. That segment is getting more and more crowded. We've talked about it over the past year on the show, but there's not a lot of automakers that have the opportunity to add on to an existing assembly plan. And Toyota does. So yeah, I agree with Larry. It's a great idea. He should listen to him, but I would just caution him right.

26:29I was just going to say I'd be careful because the next thing you know, everybody at Toyota will be driving you a C-Max's. Little inside baseball for folks who know Larry. Well, Mike, Larry, this was great. Thank you so much for joining me. Thanks, Kel. Thanks, Kel. That's all for this week and drive edition of Daily Drive. Thanks to Automotive News Executive Producer Jake Near for his help on today's podcast. You can get the latest news on VW's restructuring, for its quality push, Toyota's truck strategy, and everything happening in the auto industry at autonus.com. We'd love to hear from you. Let us know what you think of the show and the topics we cover today. It's in the send email at dailydriveatautonus.com or leave us a voicemail at 313-444-2774. And if you enjoy the podcast, remember to like, leave a review, and subscribe so you never miss an episode.