November 12, 2015
Former VW CEO Resigns as Audi Chairman in Wake of Scandal
Volkswagen AG’s former Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn resigned from his post as supervisory board chairman of the manufacturer’s Audi premium-car division, reports BloombergBusiness. Winterkorn has stepped down as chairman effective immediately, a spokesman for Audi said by phone. He resigned as CEO of Volkswagen in September, and Porsche Automobil Holding SE, its biggest shareholder, said on Oct. 17 that he’ll depart as head of that company as well. Audi is among the group’s passenger-vehicle brands that, along with the VW commercial-van nameplate, are faced with the recalls. The upscale marque accounts for about 2.4 million affected cars. VW’s new CEO, Matthias Mueller, has proceeded with a plan Winterkorn drafted to decentralize management, giving more responsibility to brands and regional heads. Audi’s global deliveries edged up 2 percent to 149,200 cars in October, the manufacturer said in a statement on Thursday. In the first 10 months of the year, Audi’s sales were up 3.6 percent at 1.5 million vehicles, compared with a 5.8 percent increase at BMW to 1.56 million cars and a 15 percent jump at Mercedes to 1.53 million. For more on Winterkorn’s resignation as Audi chairman, click here.
L.A. Show to Get Global Debuts from Honda, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mitsubishi
According to Automotive News, the rebuilding of the Civic lineup continues in Los Angeles next week as Honda debuts the second of five new Civics. The Civic coupe will get its world debut at the L.A. show. It will be followed in the next 18 months by a five-door hatchback, a performance-oriented Si model and the Type R, which, like the upcoming Ford Focus RS, is basically a street-legal race car. Other automakers also are using L.A. as a launch pad for important new vehicles. England’s Jaguar Land Rover is showing the North American version of the upcoming XE sports sedan for the first time, one of three key vehicles JLR will launch at the show. The Range Rover Evoque convertible will make its global auto show debut in L.A. It’s the first soft-top offered in the U.S. from Land Rover since the low-volume Defender 90 soft-top of the mid-1990s. The vehicle goes on sale next summer with a starting price of $51,470, including shipping. At least two other global debuts are scheduled for L.A.: The 2016 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport, a compact crossover, and the 2017 Mirage subcompact. For more on what to expect from next week’s L.A. Auto Show debuts, click here.
A Five-Story Vending Machine for Cars Just Opened in Nashville
A few years ago, a company called Carvana tried to move the car buying experience completely online, reports The Verge. The process of purchasing a car on Carvana's website includes all the steps that normally take place at a dealership: getting approved for and selecting financing, selecting a warranty, and signing the contract. It's a process that, in an interview with The Verge, Carvana CEO Ernie Garcia is quick to point out takes many Carvana customers 20 minutes or less. This left customers with just one dealership interaction: choosing pickup or delivery. And Garcia says that, more often than not, Carvana customers were choosing pickup — so much so that a subsequent pickup store in Atlanta was a rousing success. Now, though, Carvana is adding some spice to the that experience. The result? A five-story, fully-automatic vending machine building for cars just outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It's like the automated car delivery experience offered by Volkswagen in Germany, except this one is coin-operated. The bet is that the Carvana vending machine will be expensive up front, but inexpensive going forward. By employing fewer staff, leasing less acreage, and carrying fewer cars, Carvana drastically lowers the overhead. Read more about Carvana’s vending machine car buying experience here.
Kia Offers First Look at Second-Gen Cadenza
According to Automotive News, Kia Motors Corp. released the first images of the redesigned 2017 Cadenza, which is scheduled to go on sale globally next year. The decision to redesign the Cadenza, which starts at about $35,000, signals Kia will not abandon its high-end cars despite corporate sibling Hyundai’s campaign to create a dedicated luxury brand, Genesis. The renderings suggest the next-generation Cadenza will have a more angular look than the current model, penned by Kia president and design chief Peter Schreyer and introduced in South Korea in 2010. They show a deep crease in the sheet metal above the door sills, as well as a fold in Kia’s signature “tiger nose” grille. Accentuating the front end are Kia’s signature LED daytime running lights, which look like a tray of four ice cubes. Click here for an artist rendering. Kia launched the Cadenza in the United States in 2013, halfway through the car’s product cycle. With a goal of selling about 12,000 Cadenzas per year, Kia sold 9,267 in 2014 and 5,898 more through the first 10 months of 2015. For coverage of Kia’s new second generation Cadenza, click here.
Nissan Launches 'Widest-Reaching' College Sports Sponsorship in Marketing History
Nissan has announced an exhaustive and unprecedented marketing partnership with college sports that goes way beyond its “Heisman House” campaign and even its corporate affiliation with March Madness and extends its so-called “go big” marketing strategy that began with the brand’s return to Super Bowl TV advertising last February. According to Forbes, the new four-year deal — backing 100 specific colleges and universities as well as select NCAA championships and covering 22 sports — “marks the widest-reaching sponsorship in the history of collegiate sports,” Nissan declared in a news release. The program kicks off with football games on Saturday at a handful of the biggest schools, and activation extends on November 14 around both football and basketball games. The 100 schools covered are spread across the country and range from athletic icons such as Ohio State, Oklahoma, Alabama, and UCLA to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State, Hampton, and Yale. Activation of the marketing activities will involve 27 of these schools by the end of the year, the automaker said, and extend to all 100 next year. Read more about Nissan’s college sports sponsorship marketing partnership here.
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