Automotive News Europe - January 19, 2009 - 11

January 19, 2009 www.autonewseurope.com · PAGE 11 Questionnaire Exercise, music, travel inspire GM’s Nicholson Name: Dan Nicholson. Title: GM Powertrain Europe executive director of product engineering. Nationality: American. Age: 44. Languages: English, German. Family: Wife Robin; daughter Kelsea, 18; son Kevin, 16. Countries lived in: US, China, Germany. Education: Master of Business Administration from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, USA; master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA; bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Kettering University (formerly the GM Institute), Flint, Michigan, USA. What was your first car? At 16, I drove my grandmother’s 1970 Oldsmobile Delta and at 18 I bought a 1983 Buick Skylark Sport. What’s in your garage now? An Opel Insignia 2.0 turbo gasoline with manual transmission. If you could work in another industry, what would it be? I love the auto industry. I have had chances to leave, and never have. I am confident in my own skin, and I cannot imagine doing anything else. Dan Nicholson, GM Powertrain Europe product engineering executive director As an 18-year-old student, Dan Nicholson completed an internship with the Buick Motor Division in Flint, Michigan, and rejoined GM after earning his engineering degrees. From 1996-1998, he completed an MBA at Stanford. This period included a six-month interlude with GM in China, where he ensured GM’s 3.0-liter V-6 engine would run on Chinese oil and fuel. He next spent two years leading GM research into vehicle emissions. Starting in 2000, he supervised the takeover of engine management system projects previously done by former GM-owned supplier Dephi. He was director of engine calibration from 2002-2004. In 2005, he became GM’s executive director of powertrain engineering in Germany, and was given the same responsibility for Europe region in November 2008. But if there were no auto industry it would be hi-tech Silicon Valley. It has the same exciting and collaborative dynamic of bringing a complicated product to market. What is your greatest personal achievement to date? Having a family and seeing my children grow up. What are your career highlights? Helping to bring to production a US V-6 engine that would run on Chinese oil and fuel, and leading the teams that reduced the need for precious metals in catalytic converters. How do you relax? By doing something physical, such as really pushing myself while exercising on a stationary bike or treadmill. I also enjoy fine dining with my wife and family, especially outdoors and I love travel. What kind of books do you read? Business books. Not the trendy jargon stuff, more the sort of academic texts on how to lead people better and make teams work better. What is the first thing you do when you come home from work? Kiss my wife and eat dinner – though it’s often warmed up in the microwave because my family got tired of waiting for me. I don’t consider myself a workaholic but I’m often late home. But the weekends are dedicated to family time. If you could meet any figure from history, who would it be? Legendary GM President Alfred P. Sloan, who built GM into the world’s No. 1 automaker. I would like to study first hand how he could balance a decentralized organisation with centralized control because he still has lessons for us today. What are you good at outside your profession? I studied the piano for 10 years and am fairly accomplished – mainly classical but also jazz and pop. And I still think of myself as a good rugby player. I played on the wing for Stanford University and was voted the player who best captured the spirit of the game. I have fond memories of scoring my first try and drinking beer out of a rugby boot. What are your strongest personality traits? I try to be open and very straightforward in the way I work with others. I am direct but in a polite way. What are your strongest attributes as a team leader? I really value teamwork and trying to bring different skills together. When are you not at your best? When other people have more information than I do. If a colleague knows something I do not, I fret and feel at a disadvantage. What was the most fun you had last year? A vacation to Egypt. Along with visiting the tourist parts, we went to remote and dusty oases. What is your most treasured possession? I’m not a big possessions guy, but if there was a fire I would grab family albums and my diplomas, which are only bits of paper but they represent my learning and experience. Where would you really like to live? I love where I am now in Frankfurt. It’s cosmopolitan yet close to nature. Palo Alto, California, is perfect in many ways, but I don’t see myself in one place. That would be too constricting, I need to move around. Ian Morton Confidential pending on the seating position, only the pixels making up one or other image can be seen. The driver still has access to all the information from the control and display system, while the passenger uses the remote control to choose from entertainment options. Surely a recipe for long-distance journey harmony. S-class images are in the eye of the beholder. the V-8’s frictional superiority the independent experts said they would have to redefine the class standard and advance the benchmark by a few notches. safe pair of hands, just as you would expect from a world-class goalkeeper. The spy shot that never was How do you like me now? Several years ago when the club’s millionaire ‘galacticos’ were underperforming, Real Madrid fans took to chanting that they would burn the players’ Ferraris. Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo, who has been consistently linked with a move to the Spanish club, was therefore perhaps acting pre-emptively when he crashed his Ferrari into a wall in a tunnel under Man- Great soccer player, questionable driver. chester airport earlier this month. After all, there is surely no better way to demonstrate a desire to please the Bernabeu faithful than destroying your Italian exotica, before you’ve even arrived at the club. Following behind the Portuguese striker at the time of the crash was another United star, Edwin van der Sar. The Dutchman was, however, not involved in the collision – clearly a Photo: Reuters Who’s the benchmark? We are! During the development process for its newgeneration V-6 diesel and V-8 gasoline engines, Jaguar’s engineering teams were convinced that innovations in the 5.0-liter V-8 meant it was best in class for crank train friction. This factor is crucial to powertrain efficiency and fuel saving. Nevertheless, as a precaution, the company sent the engine to a prominent European engineering consultant with Smooth operator. the request to explore ways of further reducing this friction. Soon, however, the engine was returned, with the message that nothing more could be done. It was already by some margin better than the others in its class, announced the consultant. And what’s more, as a result of Here’s looking at you, Splitview There are few TV-watching households that haven’t, at one time or another, experienced the dreaded battle of the remote control. In cars, too, the driver and front-seat passenger often want to view different things on the same screen – vital satellite navigation information and a pointless TV shopping channel, for example. Now Daimler and Robert Bosch have come up with a solution that allows the driver and front-seat passenger to simultaneously view different images – on just one monitor. Marketed by co-developers Mercedes and Bosch as Splitview, the high-tech screen will go in the Mercedes-Benz S class later this year. The system pulls off its seemingly miraculous trick by placing pixels connected to different sources, directly next to each other. A filter masking the display divides this mixed image in a way which ensures that, de- A bit like police officers, Automotive News Europe’s editors and reporters are never completely off duty. So when one of them spotted a disguised BMW Z4 on the autobahn between Munich and Stuttgart in December, journalistic instincts took over. After catching up with the car, the newshound snapped what he imagined might be a few useful “spy shots” of the soonto-be-launched roadster. But being One that got away. in just the first hour of a 1,300km journey back to the UK for the Christmas break, it was not until the following day that he got to a computer. Just before e-mailing the shots back to ANE’s office, a quick Web search revealed that the official pictures of the car had been released to the media only hours earlier. One of those occasions when timing is, indeed, everything. 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Automotive News Europe - January 19, 2009

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