Automotive News Europe - July 2019 - 3

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS EUROPE

ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS

Disruption rules
O

nline disruptors have dramatically
changed how we spend our money,
but while research into car buying has
emphatically moved online, the actual car
purchase has remained stubbornly linked
to a physical dealership. The absence of
an Uber or Deliveroo for car buying means
automakers haven't felt the pressure to
substantially alter a model that's almost
as old as the cars they sell. However, as
technological change starts affecting not
just the car but also what it means to
"own" a car, automakers in Europe are
slowly building the capability to move the
whole car-buying process online. We examine the shift to online sales in our cover
story (Pages 6-8).
The Golf-sized ID3 is the first model
from Volkswagen Group's MEB platform
for mass-market electric cars, which is
a key component in the automaker's
goal to become the global EV leader. VW
brand marketing boss Jochen Sengpiehl
is leading a wide-ranging redefinition of
the VW brand identity. He discussed the
changes in an interview (Page 9).
For about two years, the Nio EP9 sports
car prototype had the fastest lap time of
any electric vehicle on the grueling Nürburgring Nordschleife. Although the EP9's
record fell last month to the Volkswagen
IDR, the result proved that Nio's innovative technology could compete with the
world's best. Nio founder and CEO William Li spoke to us about the EV maker's
plans for Europe and more (Page 10).
When PSA Group bought Opel/Vauxhall
from General Motors in 2017 it took over
a company with a troubling issue: Opel

was way behind in preparations to meet
tougher European Union emissions standards that start to take effect next year,
leaving the company at risk of facing billions of euros in fines. Fast forward two
years and Opel has an achievable plan to
meet its emissions targets, CEO Michael
Lohscheller told us (Pages 14-15).
The urgent need to lower vehicle emissions in Europe ahead of the launch of
tougher CO2 rules is hitting sales of midsize SUVs. First-quarter volume for the
models slipped by 7.7 percent, despite the
addition of new entrants such as the Seat
Tarraco and the latest generation Hyundai
Santa Fe. We look at what is causing the
deceleration and whether demand will increase in the near future (Pages 16-17).
Renault has launched the fifth-generation Clio on a new platform, upgraded its
interior and will add a fuel-saving hybrid
variant to the powertrain family in a bid
to keep the automaker's best-seller atop
Europe's largest segment, small cars.
We tested the Clio, which is the first Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance model
on the jointly developed CMF-B platform
(Page 18).

Peek inside

uppliers deliver more than just
parts to today's vehicles, in many
cases they provide complete systems
as well as game-changing technologies that help automakers stand out
from their rivals. In total, partsmakers such as Robert Bosch, Denso,
Grupo Antolin and Faurecia, supply
more than 70 percent of the components used inside today's vehicles.
See which companies have parts
in 25 crucial models in our 2019
Car Cutaways special supplement.
autonewseurope.com/cutaways2019

In the first round of our 2019 Supplier
Talk from the Top series, we will hear
from three leading executives.

title at Aptiv when it was formed in 2017,
he spoke to us about the challenges of
staying ahead of the technology curve
(Page 20).

* Valeo CEO Jacques Aschenbroich told
us how the French megasupplier is navigating around an array of hurdles during
this transformative time for the automotive industry (Page 19).

* Webasto Chairman Holger Engelmann
outlined how the German supplier will
increase sales by roughly 46 percent
to reach its target of 5 billion euros by
2020 (Page 21).

* Kevin Clark, was named CEO of Delphi
in 2015 and retained the chief executive

Marco Monti, who is president of automotive at STMicroelectronics, shared
how the semiconductor company plans
to benefit from the move toward autonomous driving (Page 22).
A merger between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Renault may or may not
happen, but in our Final Word column
we look at why this topic will remain a
red hot issue during the era of disruption
(Page 38).
Enjoy the issue!

Clay's dominance as a car design tool is being challenged by digital solutions, but Ferrari design boss Flavio Manzoni, third from left, sees "a continuous loop between virtual and physical." Learn more on Pages 12-13.

JULY 2019

Luca Ciferri,
Associate Publisher and Editor

www.autonewseurope.com

http://www.autonewseurope.com/cutaways2019 http://www.autonewseurope.com

Automotive News Europe - July 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive News Europe - July 2019