Category: Brands

TOKYO – The global chairman of the struggling Japanese premium brand Infiniti is retiring from the position at the end of the month and will be replaced by an interim head.

Peyman Kargar, who has led Infiniti since June 2020 and was preparing for a wide-ranging brand reboot centered on the QX80 SUV, will leave the role on March 30, the end of Nissan’s fiscal year.

A person familiar with the move said Kargar will be returning to France.

Kargar, 55, worked at French alliance partner Renault for nearly two decades before coming to Nissan in 2017. He led Nissan’s Africa, Middle East and India operations before leading Infiniti.

Olga Filippova, general manager in charge of global sales and marketing, will be acting head of Infiniti, parent company Nissan announced on Wednesday in a personnel shuffle.

Filippova joined Infiniti in 2018 and assumed her current role as Kargar’s global No. 2 in 2020.

Last year, Kargar outlined plans to Automotive News to jumpstart Infiniti for a new era of growth and a belated leap into the battery-electric race.

The road map included a new look for Infiniti dealerships, a new design language for its vehicles and a flurry of accents to impress customers, such as a unique Infiniti scent and signature sound.

The relaunch was scheduled to coincide with the introduction of the redesigned QX80 as the brand’s flagship. A close to production Monograph prototype is set to be unveiled this year.

Kargar landed at Infiniti after a period of rapid turnover at the top.

He replaced Mike Colleran, who served as global brand head for only three months. Colleran had taken over from an interim chairman following the departure of previous Infiniti President Christian Meunier in 2019 to become global president of the Jeep brand. Meunier’s resignation came just four months after the departure of his predecessor, Roland Krueger.

Infiniti’s global sales plunged 55 percent to 84,830 vehicles in 2021, from 188,990 in 2019 before the pandemic. U.S. sales, the bulk of brand volume, fell 20 percent to 46,619 vehicles in 2022.

Former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn had set a goal for Infiniti to account for 10 percent of the industry’s global luxury market, racking up annual sales of 500,000 vehicles.

At one point, Ghosn’s plan called for Infiniti to be a pioneer in luxury electric vehicles, getting an EV based on the Nissan Leaf on sale in 2014. That never happened.

The brand’s last major product — the redesigned QX60 midsize crossover — was delayed several months, rolling into stores in late 2021. Infiniti still has no full-electric vehicle. But two EVs for the brand are scheduled to enter production at Nissan’s Canton, Mississippi, plant from 2025.

Jaguar and Land Rover dealers in Europe are threatening to take the automaker to court over the automaker’s new contracts that dealers says substantially reduce their margins.

Dealers are angry that the automaker plans to reduce their margins after they have invested millions in their dealerships in recent years at the automaker’s request.

JLR‘s plunging sales in Europe are also adding to dealers’ struggles. Last year, sales of Land Rover and Jaguar vehicles in the EU, EFTA and UK fell 20 percent to 119,861, according to data from industry association ACEA.

Jaguar Land Rover has terminated contracts with its European dealers and offered new terms.

If the automaker sticks to introducing the new dealer contracts as early as April 1, it could lead to a court battle from which no party would benefit, the head of JLR’s European Dealer Association, Arjen de Jong, wrote in a letter to the manufacturer obtained by Automobilwoche.

A key problem from the dealer’s point of view is that JLR is way off the mark with its sales forecasts.

“JLR’s current volume forecasts are significantly lower and with worse margins,” de Jong wrote.

In Germany, JLR’s new contract will halve dealer margins to a maximum of 9 percent.

JLR also wants to curtail the influence of the dealer association in the new contracts.

Every automaker in the world that develops and builds its own products rather than just assemble rebadged vehicles has some sort of proving ground where it evaluates its future models. In the case of General Motors, that property is the world’s first dedicated automotive testing facility, which is among the largest and most comprehensive of such facilities in the global automotive industry. We can only imagine how difficult it is to get behind the walls of the Milford Proving Ground but a new article from The Detroit Free Press opens the doors to GM’s product development and durability testing center.

The secrecy of that place isn’t just a myth, though. Most General Motors employees have never been there and will never be. This is the site where every new GM product – be it global or only for North America – is being tested and pushed to its limits before it is approved for production. This is where the Chevrolet Corvette C8 was secretly developed and back in December 2021, even a Ford Mustang Mach-E was spotted there leaving the facility. The site, located about 45 miles northwest of Detroit, opened its doors nearly a century ago and currently has a track that replicates sections of the Nurburgring.

Even for those who have access to the Milford Proving Ground, it is not easy to tour the entire site. Most of the 4,900 employees there have just the basic Level 1 training, which allows them to drive only on the access roads and never get close to the actual test track and development facilities. Of General Motors’ around 81,000 salaried employees around the globe, just about 200 have the highest levels 4, 5 or 6 driving privileges to enter the more secret areas of the proving ground. If you happen to have Level 4 access, you can go as fast as 150 miles per hour around the test track. Level 5 and Level 6 employees can go even faster.

“It’s an automotive playground,” Keith Van Houten of the Milford Proving Ground told The Detroit Free Press. “All the latest cars are here. If you’re a car geek, it doesn’t get any better.” But it’s also a place where nature is at high respect and there’s even a dedicated environmental manager who takes care of all the lakes and forests in the area. “We’re here to provide for the next generation We’re borrowing this planet … you want to give it back a little better,” Brenda Korth, an environmental engineer at Milford Proving Ground, said.

The Detroit Free Press is launching a three-part series, which will take us behind the curtain of that proving ground.

The platform launched its TikTok Now feature in September in response to the surging popularity of BeReal, a French social media app that users flocked to for its refreshingly authentic approach to social media. In 2022, more than 40 million people downloaded the app, including nearly 15 million in September alone, according to Influencer Marketing Hub.

Brands such as Chipotle and e.l.f Cosmetics have experimented with BeReal in their social media strategies. Brands using TikTok Now include Eos, which has used it to share additional, behind-the-scenes style content alongside TikTok videos. The hype surrounding BeReal seems to have gradually diminished in 2023, however. 

Nissan has been leaning into TikTok as a core part of its social media strategy. The automaker recently launched a TikTok-first campaign to promote the launch of its Nissan Ariya electric vehicle. Nissan’s lead agencyTBWAChiatDay was part of that effort and is also involved in the new campaign. 

Beyond TikTok Now, Nissan’s March Madness campaign will include six TV ads  featuring over a dozen college basketball team mascots riding in various Nissan vehicles on the “Road 2 the Final Four.” Each commercial involves a different mix of mascots—from The Ohio State University’s Brutus Buckeye to the University of Notre Dame’s Leprechaun—as well as University of Southern California head women’s basketball coach Lindsay Gottlieb and former professional basketball players Candace Parker and Kenny Smith, who has been part of the CBS/Turner March Madness broadcast team. Nissan will begin airing the ads on March 10. 

Both Ohio State and Notre Dame are longshots to make the men’s NCAA tournament this year, so the ads might be the closest that fans of those schools get to the madness.

Anybody who thinks the transition to electric vehicles will be soft-n-easy had better read this week’s issue closely.

We tell you about the change on a number of fronts this week.

It’s fair to say that a few decades ago, the Detroit auto industry freaked out when it discovered what an amazing machine Toyota was in how is built cars, designed them to be built smoothly and worked constantly to bring down costs.

But we tell you on Page 1 that Toyota is now doing its own freak-out as it discovers what an amazing machine Tesla is in turning out EVs. Toyota is overhauling its organization to catch up with Tesla.

But turn the page and you’ll read this news: Tesla itself is now rethinking how it builds EVs. Elon Musk told the audience for his March 1 Investor Day presentation that Tesla intends to launch a new vehicle platform that will cost half what Tesla’s older platforms cost to build. (And by the way, it’s those older Tesla models that are freaking Toyota out.)

The point isn’t “who’s the best?” The point is that everything’s up for reconsideration.

Nissan, which helped light the fuse on the EV segment more than a decade ago, is also rethinking its North American manufacturing and sourcing strategy for EVs, we report on Page 3. It will involve an overhaul of its production lines, product lines and supply lines here.

The necessary changes can be abrupt.

The situation at Stellantis’ Jeep Belvidere plant outside Chicago provides a good example. Belvidere has turned out classic models since 1965, like the original Dodge Charger, the Chrysler Imperial and New Yorker and the Dodge Neon. And since 2007, Belvidere workers have been pumping out Jeeps.

But the plant just went dark as Stellantis prepares for an EV future.

In a story on Page 4, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares acknowledges that such transition is “very uncomfortable,” but it must be done.

“The reality of the transformation of the market is the reality that we need to face,” Tavares told reporters in response to questions about Belvidere. “And that’s something that we should not run away from.”

Car subscriptions offer plenty of attractions. For a monthly fee, subscribers have a car but not the hassles of car ownership or car leasing, such as maintenance, repair and insurance. They can switch vehicles more often — to a different model or just a newer version of the same. Moreover, customers are relatively unaffected by the auto industry’s prevailing supply bottlenecks, and they often get a car delivered to their front door.

But the model has yet to take off, especially in the United States. One reason is that awareness of the service is low. An Oliver Wyman survey found that Americans were attracted to the benefits of car subscriptions: One in five respondents would adopt the model. But of these, two-thirds did not even know that subscription models existed before participating in the survey. The results indicate the need for marketing and other activities to ignite demand.

One market with a relatively large number of car subscription contracts is Germany, where an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 car subscriptions have been purchased, and some studies have suggested that subscriptions will account for up to 40 percent of market share by 2030. In the U.S., rates are typically somewhere between those for leasing and rental and usually start at around $500 a month for small, volume-brand cars, rising to $1,500 for premium brands. That usually covers everything including repairs, insurance and other expenses apart from fuel. While the rates initially seem relatively high, it could work out to be not much more expensive than traditional car ownership or leasing — the total cost of mobility is usually underestimated by consumers.

Cole, whose website touts more than 50 years of experience as an “internationally recognized sales agent, auctioneer, and appraiser of investment grade automobiles,” knew the car wasn’t genuine and intentionally concealed its true history, the suit said.

“Someone tried to make the Vehicle appear authentic by reproducing or stamping a new chassis plate to make the writing seem more like that used by Maserati at the time, in an obvious attempt to convince a potential buyer” that it was genuine, the suit said. “Upon information and belief, it was Cole and/or his agents who made these changes.”

General Motors is considering the former Palace of Auburn Hills in suburban Detroit site for a large space for suppliers, according to Crain’s Detroit Business, an affiliate of Automotive News.

GM would not confirm on Thursday evening it was looking at the centrally located 110-acre property that used to house the Detroit Pistons, but did say it was considering Auburn Hills, along with other “multiple locations for a supplier park to support its Orion Assembly Plant, which will be expanded to produce electric pickup trucks.”

But a source requesting anonymity and briefed on the matter told Crain’s that GM was looking at the Palace site.

Auburn Hills Mayor Kevin McDaniel said no plans have been submitted to the city to redevelop the site.

The Orion Assembly Plant is at 4555 Giddings Rd., and consists of 4.3 million square feet on 433 acres, currently producing Chevy Bolt EV and EUV, and Cruise AV. The official plant website says it is “positioning itself to support GM’s goal to bring 30 new EVs to market globally by 2025.”

A location for the GM supplier park has not yet been determined, but it could be north of 1 million square feet, sources have said.

Messages have been left with top executives of Livonia-based Schostak Bros. & Co. and the Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores, which co-own the site that paid $22 million for it in 2019.

Demolition on the Palace, where the Pistons played from 1988 to 2017 before moving to Little Caesars Arena, began that year.

Ford is increasing production of several models to keep up with high demand. At some factories, this also means adding more workers.

The Ford Mustang Mach-E sees the biggest production increase in this announcement. Ford is tweaking the plant so that it can nearly double the hourly production of the EV. With these changes, the automaker expects to build 210,000 units by the end of the year.

Ford will also build more units of the Bronco Sport and Maverick pickup. The company projects production to increase by 80,000 examples this year.

The automaker believes it can triple production of the F-150 Lightning at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center this year. This would amount to annual assembly of 150,000 examples by the end of 2023. To fund this, Ford is putting $2 billion into three plants in Michigan and adding 3,200 union jobs.

Ford moved 15,617 units of the Lightning in 2022. Through February 2023, it delivered 3,600 examples of the electric pickup. In the same period, the automaker’s sales of EVs, in general, are up 68 percent.

The company is investing $95 million to add 1,100 union jobs at the Kansas City Assembly Plant. Increased production of the Transit and E-Transit vans begins there in April. The company expects to increase assembly of these models by 38,000 units a year.

“We have had a strong start to 2023 and we are moving to fast-track quality production,” said Kumar Galhotra, president of Ford Blue. 

While a production increase isn’t happening yet, Ford is exploring ways to build more units of the F-150 at the Dearborn Truck Plant.

Beyond building more of these models, Ford has several vehicles joining the lineup this year. A new generation of the Super Duty is coming this spring. The next-gen Mustang is also on the way. The Escape has a refresh on the horizon. Plus, the North American version of the Ranger finally arrives. Production reportedly begins on July 10, according to a rumor.

Ford’s U.S. F-150 sales fell 9.9 percent in 2022 to about 654,000, including 15,617 F-150 EV trucks, as the company struggled with production and supply chain problems.

General Motors last month said it would idle the Fort Wayne, Ind., assembly plant that builds Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks for two weeks starting March 27 to maintain “optimal inventory levels with our dealerships.”

GM, Ford and Chrysler parent Stellantis dominate the U.S. large pickup market, and for the past two years have been raising prices on their trucks to record levels as supply-chain snags limited production.

The U.S. Postal Service this week said it would buy 9,250 E-Transit delivery vehicles from Ford starting later this year.

Ford began increasing production of the Mustang Mach-E this week and plans to nearly double its hourly production and bring its annual manufacturing run rate to a targeted 210,000 units by the end of 2023.