Volkswagen Braces for Boardroom Battle as Internal Survey Reveals Widespread Alarm Among Executives

CEO Blume pushes 'Zielbild 2030' plan to close German plants, cut models, and spin off VW brand ahead of critical July 9 board vote.

A confidential poll of Volkswagen’s top management has laid bare the depth of the crisis gripping Europe’s largest automaker: 80% of senior leaders rate the company’s current predicament as critical. The stark finding sets the stage for what promises to be a historic showdown in the supervisory board on July 9, when CEO Oliver Blume will demand approval for a restructuring plan that would reshape the 87-year-old group.

Up to 100,000 jobs—roughly 15% of the global workforce of 660,000—are on the line. Four German plants in Emden, Zwickau, Hanover and Audi’s Neckarsulm facility, which together employ around 44,000 people, face outright closure. The plan, dubbed “Zielbild 2030” (Group Target Picture 2030), also calls for slashing the model lineup from 150 variants to fewer than 100 and spinning off the core Volkswagen brand into a separate legal entity, leaving the parent holding company as a pure-play investment vehicle.

The boardroom is split down the middle. Worker representatives and the state of Lower Saxony, which together hold a blocking minority, are dug in against plant shutdowns. Lower Saxony’s deputy premier, Julia Willie Hamburg, has flatly rejected closures. To break the deadlock, Blume is threatening an extraordinary general meeting in August—a move unprecedented in German corporate history that would put the restructuring directly to shareholders in an open vote.

The market has already priced in a heavy dose of uncertainty. Volkswagen’s preferred stock recently changed hands at €75.26, after hitting a 52-week low of €69.20 on July 1. Year-to-date, the shares have shed around 29% and trade about 20% below their 200-day moving average. The company’s market capitalisation has more than halved since Blume took the helm in 2022, now standing at roughly €37 billion.

Analysts are growing cautious. One leading house reaffirmed its “buy” rating but slashed its price target from €130 to €120, citing the deepening operational woes. On the technical side, the relative strength index (RSI) has fallen to 35.8, nudging the stock towards oversold territory.

The urgency behind Blume’s push stems from a triple whammy: sales in China have collapsed from more than 4 million vehicles to just 2.69 million, US tariffs are estimated to cost the group €5 billion a year, and the operating margin for 2025 limped in at around 3%. To circumvent EU punitive tariffs on Chinese imports, Volkswagen is exploring a workaround—importing China-developed models such as the ID. Era 9X into Europe.

Even if the board greenlights the plan, the job guarantee at the four endangered plants, which runs to 2030, would have to be torn up. That breach alone could trigger a penalty payment of roughly €1 billion. Meanwhile, at the group’s sports-car subsidiary, Porsche, up to 4,000 jobs are also set to be cut, mainly in administration and management.

The July 9 meeting is a binary moment for Blume’s leadership. If the supervisory board approves the package, it will mark the most radical overhaul in Volkswagen’s history. If it blocks or delays it, the CEO is ready to pull the trigger on an extraordinary shareholder assembly—escalating an internal conflict onto the public stage and turning shareholders into the ultimate referees.