Automotive News Europe - February 2, 2009 - 19

February 2, 2009 www.autonewseurope.com · PAGE 19 VW counts on production flexibility to beat Toyota Indian factory will be a blueprint for standardized, more versatile plants Bettina Mayer Automotive News Europe takes an average of 35 hours to assemble a car. Top of the list is Nissan, which at its two European plants averages 14 hours. BMW says its eight-speed automatic is more efficient than a dual-clutch unit. 10% better each year Besides opening flexible factories, BERLIN Future Volkswagen facto- VW also is using more standardized ries, including the automaker’s new components in its cars and is develplants in India and the US, will have oping modular architectures, which the flexibility to produce nearly every will make it easier to build a wider vamodel of the VW group. riety of cars in future factories. VW hopes a standard Heizmann aims to inlayout for new factories crease VW’s productivity will cut production by 10 percent annually costs and help the comuntil 2018. pany to reach its target He said developing to overtake Toyota, the modular components, world’s largest carmakarchitectures and proer, by 2018. duction site layouts will “Flexibility is key for create huge cost savings our plan to catch Toyin factory investment, ota,” said VW group proproduct development duction head Jochem and procurement. Heizmann at a recent “Standardization is press event here late last “Flexibility is key for our essential” if VW is to plan to catch Toyota.” year. reach its 2018 target, To increase its group Heizman said. global sales to 11.2 mil- Jochem Heizmann, VW As an example, he said lion units by 2018 from group production head VW currently has differ6.2 million in 2007, VW ent ways to fit an instruis building factories in regions where ment panel into the car and different it has no local production or current- ways to join materials on the assemly only builds cars on a small scale. bly line. VW is the least efficient manufac“We want to standardize those turer among European volume auto- ways,” he said. makers, according to a confidential The modular approach will help Harbour Report quoted in the Ger- VW develop niche cars and bring man business magazine Capital. them into production quickly. The report, which analyzes autoVW’s new plant in Pune, India, will motive factory efficiency, said VW be the carmaker’s first factory built to BMW favors automatics over dual-clutch Klaus Dieter Flörecke and Guido Reinking Automobilwoche MUNICH Klaus Draeger, BMW’s development chief, is turning to automatic transmissions and away from dual-clutch assemblies for the automaker’s high-volume model lines. “The eight-speed automatic that we developed with ZF can compete with dual-clutch transmissions on shifting times, but it’s lighter and more efficient and has cost advantages,” he said. “The incompatibility with high engine-speed designs is a disadvantage, however.” Draeger said dual-clutch transmissions are complex, expensive and heavy, especially for cars with longitudinally mounted engines and rear-wheel drive. BMW offers dual clutch transmissions in sporty versions of its 3 Series coupes and the Z4 Roadster. ZF Friedrichshafen designed the eight-gear automatic for cars with rear- and all-wheel-drive. Later this year, the transmission will go into BMW and Audi vehicles. It also features an optional ANE start-stop system. Volkswagen’s new 110,000-capacity assembly factory in India will be the first to feature a standard layout that will be used in other VW group plants. a new standard layout. Other new VW factories will have floor plans, assembly lines and production cycles which are similar to the Pune plant, which will open March 31. The factory is scheduled to produce up to 110,000 VW Polo and Skoda Fabia hatchbacks annually. VW’s next flexible factory will be in Chattanooga in the US state of Tennessee. It is due to begin production of an upper-medium sedan in early 2011 with an initial capacity of ANE 150,000 vehicles a year. Personnel VW’s Steiger takes future-tech job Wolfgang Steiger has been named director of future technologies at VW group’s external affairs department. Steiger, 53, will promote current and future drivetrain technologies. Previously, Steiger was VW’s director of powertrain research. He joined the reSteiger directed search departVW’s powertrain ment in 1997. research group. Previously, Steiger worked for Robert Bosch and Opel in powertrain research, eventually overseeing Opel’s diesel engine development and testing. His career has included research in diesel and gasoline engines, transmissions, hybrids, batteries, fuel cells, engine electronics and fuels. Bettina Mayer up a senior global sales and marketing role. In 2008, Mazda boosted newcar sales by 9.8 percent to a record 342,800 Waring helped in its European Mazda to 2008 markets, which sales record. include Russia and Turkey. Sales in Russia grew 47 percent to 73,700 units to make the country Mazda’s biggest European market. Waring will keep responsibility for sales and marketing in his new role. John Revill BMW restructures its sales & marketing team BMW started this week Von Sahr replaces Philippe Dehennin, 53, with a radically changed who is now head of sales and marketing diBMW’s French sales vision in Europe. subsidiary. Dehennin The automaker has succeeds Nicolas Wernew people at top posts tans, 40, who left the in Germany, France, Belcompany to join gium and Switzerland. PSA/Peugeot-Citroen. The executives all startIn other moves, Erich ed February 1. Karsten Engel, 50, is Engel will lead BMW’s Papke, 52 is the new the new head of sales sales unit in Germany. sales boss as BMW and marketing for GerSwitzerland. He previmany. He spent the past year as head ously was manager of BMW Poland, of global aftersales and sales devel- a job that still needs to be filled. opment. Engel succeeds Philipp von Papke replaces Dölf Carl, 52, who Sahr, 50, who has become president left the company in December 2008. of the BMW’s Belgium-Luxembourg Hurtej Kaur sales subsidiary. 1987 and last worked for the company’s sales team in Sweden. He replaces Kenji Ogasawara, who is now chief planner in the Toyota sales department at Denso Japan. De Wolf was executive general manager of sales for Denso in the UK. He brings more than 20 years of Denso experience to Gothenburg. De Wolf takes over for Terumasa Takada, who will remain in Sweden to make sure there is a smooth transition. Hurtej Kaur ropean Council of Automotive Research, effective January 1. EUCAR represents the research interests of European automakers, and is in direct contact Leohold will prowith the European Commission vide electric expertise. and Parliament. A German national, Leohold said he wants to boost the Commission’s awareness about electric-powered mobility and second-generation biofuels. Leohold, 54, worked for most of the last 20 years in electrics and electronics research at VW. . Staff report BMW exec to move to key sales job at PSA PARIS BMW’s top executive in France, Nicolas Wertans, is moving to PSA/Peugeot-Citroen, where sources say he will play an important role in creating sales and marketing synergies between the Peugeot and Citroen brands. Wertans, currently president of BMW France, is a 40-year-old Frenchman and former Ford of Europe executive. He is expected to join PSA’s upper management group, alongside manufacturing boss Roland Vardanega, Peugeot managing director JeanPhilippe Collin, programs head Gregoire Olivier and an as-yet unnamed managing director of Citroen. BMW announced January BMW’s Wertans 9 that Wertans will move to PSA would leave the German carmaker at the end of the month after two years running its French subsidiary. A PSA spokesman said Wertans will not be replacing Gilles Michel, who resigned as managing director of the Citroen brand last month to take over the French government’s new sovereign wealth fund. PSA CEO Christian Streiff is overseeing the Citroen brand until PSA chooses Michel’s successor. Before he joined BMW, Wertans spent the 1994 to 2005 period in a variety of posts with Ford of Europe in France, the UK and Switzerland. Lawrence J. Speer Denso names new sales heads for Europe offices Denso has appointed new sales managers at three of its seven regional offices in Europe. Kenichi Tanabe, a Japanese national, is the new head of Denso’s sales unit in Italy. Yoshio Kano, also Japanese, will head the company’s sales team in France. Philip de Wolf, a Tanabe leads UK national, Denso's sales takes over Denso team in Italy sales in Sweden. During more than 30 years with Denso, Tanabe has held positions in Japan, Germany, France and the UK. He succeeds Naoshi Uno, who moves to Japan as a senior sales manager. Kano has been with Denso since Mazda’s Waring named COO of Europe division Mazda’s Philip Waring is the new chief operating officer of the carmaker’s European operations. Waring, 51, a UK citizen, has overseen the Japanese carmaker’s growth in the region since he took charge of Mazda’s European sales organization in July 2005. In his new role, Waring succeeds Masahiro Moro, who has moved to Mazda’s head office in Japan to take VW research boss adds EUCAR post Jürgen Leohold, head of Volkswagen Group research since April 2008, also became chair of the Eu-

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Automotive News Europe - February 2, 2009

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