When it came to performance, Herbie had the power but VW didn't share his passion

It's hard working for a family company, just ask Herbie Diess.

Until this week, Herb was the boss of the $116bn Volkswagen that has 673,000 workers toiling in 120 factories and even more dealerships, usually selling about 11 million Volkswagens, SKODAs, SEATs, CUPRAs, Audis, Lambos, Bentleys, Porkers and Ducati bikes for temporary citizens of the planet, every year BC (Before Covid).

Anyway, despite being handed the golden hospital pass, taking over at the height of Dieselgate, turning the business around by putting in a successful new strategy, including electric and putting the mojo back in the VW brand, the family suddenly gave Herb the flick.

Part of the problem was that Herbie was an outsider. He came from BMW, didn't suck up to the family, unions and local government enough, copped the blame for VW being too slow to get EVs into dealer showrooms, and said a few weirdo things like it took VW 30 hours to make an electric car while Tesla did it in 10 hours. And he was serious about cost-cutting – never a great thing when union reps make up half the board.

Easy to forget that so far VW has paid out more than $46bn in fines and the CEO before Herb is facing criminal charges. And that when Herb took over VW in 2015 the bottom line was worse off by $23bn. And that just before the VW family shot Herb, he produced a profit for the first half of this year of $19bn.

The dirty little secret at VW (apart from diesel) is just what a profit powerhouse Porsche is. In the first six months of this year, Porsche sold the smallest number of cars (149,000) of the group's 10 brands. Despite that, it made the most money ($4.6bn) of any single brand and not much less than the Audi Premium Group, which makes 513,000 cars like Lamborghinis, Bentleys and Ducatis.

Anyway, the Porsche-Piech family have replaced Herb, who will probably join space cadet Elon Musk at Tesla, with Porker boss Ollie Blume. Ollie has a lot to recommend him. He was born in Braunschweig a mere 32 minutes from VW's global HQ at Wolfsburg. And he has been at VW all his working life. And he is jolly, social and loves the unions. Whatever happens, don't expect to buy an electric VW in Australia for about six years and don't expect the Porker IPO anytime soon.

Talking of cars, US-based, JD Power, the world leading rating agency of cars, has released its Quality Study, now in its 36th year, and based on responses from 84,165 owners of new 2022 model-year vehicles. Key points: both new and continuing models had more problems this year; mass market vehicles experience fewer problems than premium vehicles; infotainment systems remain the most problematic area; and, in very good news, owners of electric cars cite more problems with their vehicles than do owners of vehicles with internal combustion engines. Volvo's Polestar ranked worst of the 36 brands and Tesla was 30th.

Meanwhile the UK's Telegraph ranked electric vehicles on how long their batteries last. Best on battery is the 2017 Kia Soul EV. Worst is 2017 BMW i3.

Fortunately, no electric cars but the Shannon's online August auction will be a great test of the classic car market. Yours with no three-year warranty, no fixed price service and no choice of colour for only $1.5m. Next is a 2012 V-10 Lexus LFA. Toyota Premium Group (aka Lexus) only made 500 of these, 10 came to Australia, selling for $750k. Jeremy Clarkson said the LFA was "the best car I've ever driven".