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Posts Tagged ‘Bob Lutz’

Lotus lunch at the RAC

December 17th, 2010 | No Comments

I attended a Lotus media lunch earlier this week at the RAC Club in London (marvellous institution, very old style gentlemen’s club; some superb paintings on the walls; and the staff will have severe words with you if you are not attired in business suit with collar and tie).

The latest ambitious plans for Lotus certainly make for a good story and Dany Bahar seems to be enjoying himself telling everyone how great the future is going to be. The business plan is very public. There’s just the small matter of execution and making it all happen now and there are more than a few hostages to fortune if anything slips. A few media colleagues said they’d heard it all before from Lotus. I know what they mean and it isn’t difficult to be cynical, but this time it has the ring of ‘we’re really going for it because this is it, we really have to make it work in order to have a future’.

It is an impressive sounding plan and Lotus does have a strong brand with heritage, a manufacturing base and plenty of engineering expertise. Is annual production of 8,000 units a big deal, really? Porsche does 75,000 a year. It ‘just’ needs to all be brought together in a coherent way. But having a management team with a plan is a fundamental prerequisite to do that. They seem to have that, so there are certainly grounds for optimism. I just hope they can take Lotus forward with the new models and do it in a way that keeps their loyal fan base and the Lotus spirit intact, while still getting the brand out to new customers.

Tom Purves – used to be head of BMW USA – was a real gent and a pleasure to hear chatting about the industry over lunch. He seems to be really enjoying himself in his advisory capacity with Lotus. As Dany Bahar said, they have a young and ‘super-ambitious’ team, and some advice from wise and experienced heads is a good thing to add in to the mix. Bob Lutz is also part of the Lotus advisory council and I’d imagine he must have a few interesting things to say. And, well, Maximum Bob doesn’t mess around when it comes to letting people know what he thinks does he? Something in Autocar caught my eye…

Still on Lotus, the latest edition of the e-magazine that we produce on behalf of Lotus Engineering – proActive, is now available. There’s more on the Lotus strategy, as well as an interview I did with Lotus Design Director Donato Coco and an interview with Torotrak’s CEO.

http://www.just-auto.com/proActive/

UK: Lotus CEO sets out ‘British Porsche’ strategy

Geneva leftovers

March 8th, 2010 | No Comments

I have been going through my Geneva notes and there are a few nuggets picked up in interviews that didn’t make it into articles that might be worth sharing anyway. So here they are, in no particular order:

Toyota’s Didier Leroy said that in Europe some 200,000 accelerator pedal recalls have been made out of 1.7m cars; also more than 16,000 of the Prius software changes have been made – out of 52,900.
Lexus is aiming for around 28,000 European sales in 2010 – versus 27,000 last year.
Bob Lutz pointed out that while General Motors the brand has attracted negative baggage, the brands underneath will often be viewed much more positively by the same people with negative views of GM. ‘Hate the parents, don’t blame the kids’ was the phrase he used.
I asked Lutz about the chances of a GM IPO this year. ‘It will be done at the appropriate time’ was his straight bat response.
Should GM have kept Saab? Is there a danger that it will now be successful and GM will have sold something that it should have held on to? Lutz pointed out that GM was under strict instructions from the Obama task force to halve the number of brands and had little alternative but to divest loss-making Saab.
Lutz said that the US market has changed in the sense that the formerly ‘impregnable membrane’ that appeared to divide the market into import and domestic brands has opened up with owners of cars in both categories now prepared to consider cars in the other category in a way that was not the case a few years ago.
Nick Reilly thinks that alliances have more mileage in them.
Allan Rushforth – who has worked in other OEMs – enjoys the speed and autonomy for Hyundai in Europe. ‘It’s not a culture based on endless committee meetings – we just get stuff done.’ He also sees only a ‘marginal business case’ for hybrids in Europe, acknowledging the marketing benefit for companies with hybrids right now but questioning whether that advantage will be as strong in 18 months’ time when there are many more hybrids around. He noted that there is still a lot to be done with clean diesel and improved performance of gasoline engines.

Good wishes to Bob Lutz

March 4th, 2010 | No Comments

Whatever you make of GM’s Bob Lutz, there are surely few who would begrudge him good wishes for his retirement. I saw him a couple of days ago in Geneva when he gave an interview to journalists and he was on his usual good form, as enthusiastic as ever at delivering his views on the industry.

There were some who portrayed him as a kind of relic from the past with old-fashioned attitudes. That is way too simplistic and, in fact, Lutz has always been a difficult guy to stereotype. A small example. In Geneva this week he mocked the ‘right-wing radio talk show hosts’ in the US for the way they portray the ‘nationalisation’ of General Motors. He pointed out that it was a free market Republican – Harry Wilson – who persuaded Democrats that the equity solution was preferable to loading GM with more debt to service. ‘And now the poor Obama administration gets blamed for a left-wing socialist takeover of GM when in fact that solution was proposed by a free market Republican,’ he said.

Is Lutz fond of RWD muscle cars? Do bears tend to defecate in the woods? Yes, bears do, but they will also go anywhere to answer the call of nature. Lutz is also the guy who has enthusiastically championed the Volt and understands that the auto business is rapidly changing.

One thing about Lutz is you always have the feeling he will say what he thinks and not slavishly follow the company line. I think he probably revelled in that image as the maverick, but he did seem to say things in a way that suggested his words were not exactly crafted by a PR person. I guess the ‘global warming is a crock of shit’ remark was a striking example of that. A stupid thing to say, or wonderfully provocative, brutally honest? Or all of the above? Discuss.

But he was not some kind of ‘always shoot from the hip for maximum effect’ idiot; far from it. He had a good grasp of the numbers and the big strategic picture. He also understood collective responsibility and I’d wager his colleagues would have liked having him on the board, bringing his considerable experience to the table. Have there been disagreements? I’d guess so, but Lutz doesn’t seem the type to undermine people through media manipulation. Perhaps he is more team player than the maverick reputation suggests.

On a simple human level, you had to respect the guy’s experience and history, his enthusiasm for the auto business and its products. Hard to believe Lutz is 78. I like the idea of him enjoying a good few years on his motorcycles/cars/airplanes, perhaps occasionally raising his head above the parapet to express some pithy and forthright views.

US: GM’s Bob Lutz to retire (again)

GENEVA SHOW: Fuel prices key to small cars in US – Lutz

Geneva press day

March 1st, 2010 | No Comments

I have been looking at my schedule for the first press day at the Geneva Show tomorrow (March 2). There are a number of formal interviews that have been arranged in advance. I’m seeing Didier Leroy of Toyota at 10:15am, Bob Lutz on the Chevrolet stand at 11:00am and Nick Reilly CEO of Opel/Vauxhall at 2:00pm. At 4:00pm there’s Allan Rushforth at Hyundai. In between, there’s a list of people who said ‘let’s meet up in Geneva’, a few more stands to call in on and, lest we forget, some new automotive metal to have a good gander at.

It certainly won’t be dull.

Saab latest

January 12th, 2010 | No Comments

This must be an intensely frustrating time for Saab workers. After the Trollhattan factory reopened yesterday, they still don’t know their fate and can only scratch their heads at the reports in the media.

Could the new 9-5 line be shipped to China for the car to be rebranded as a Buick? Stranger things have happened, but the denials from GM have been pretty unequivocal. It is a major asset though, and one that GM might not want to completely give up on. We’ll see, but the view from Bob Lutz appears to be that GM would rather scrap the model than rebadge or sell it on.

Sad to think that a model that has been through the (expensive) development process and is ‘ready to go’ might not actually make it to market.

GM is also keeping the pressure on bidders by sounding tough on wind-down. Is it a tactic? Could be, but the clock is surely ticking for some sort of deal – including Swedish government guarantees and an EIB loan – to come out of the wash.

The difficulty in getting the finance lined up on a reasonable timescale was the reason that Koenigsegg backed out. That still seems to be the case, with GM facing wind-down costs that are at least known today versus uncertainties on potentially large future liabilities if ’New Saab’ goes bust. That must be at the core of the difficulties in doing a deal I would think. GM also knows that turning a profit at Saab won’t be easy – if it was it might hang on to it.

So there’s a paradox here. GM doesn’t want the hassle of trying to make Saab work, but it needs to know that a new owner has a decent shot at it because it doesn’t want to be left holding the baby if it fails.

It’s a sorry tale.

US/CHINA: Saab rumours swirl as GM maintains wind-down

A new boss for General Motors: Fritzkrieg

December 3rd, 2009 | No Comments

America’s struggling car giant has ditched its chief executive after just eight months

FRITZ HENDERSON was due to deliver a speech at the Los Angeles Motor Show on December 2nd, to give an update on General Motors’ progress since its spell in bankruptcy this summer. Instead his place had to be taken by Bob Lutz, a former GM executive in his late 70s who was recently recalled from retirement to supervise the company’s marketing. The silver-haired showman tried to talk up GM’s prospects, but what his audience really wanted to know was why the firm had suddenly lost its second boss this year.

The short answer is that GM’s independent directors had decided that Mr Henderson, who had spent almost his entire career at the firm, was not the man to spearhead the company’s renewal. Both Ford and Chrysler, GM’s two big American rivals, have installed outsiders to lead dramatic overhauls. Moreover, GM’s new chairman, Edward Whitacre—put there by the government, which now owns a majority stake in the firm—has his own ideas about the way forward, and has taken over as interim chief executive. …

Fritzkrieg

December 2nd, 2009 | No Comments

General Motors has ditched its chief executive after just eight months on the job

FRITZ Henderson was due to deliver a speech at the Los Angeles Motor Show on Wednesday December 2nd, to give an update on General Motors’ progress since its spell in bankruptcy this summer. Instead his place had to be taken by Bob Lutz, a former GM executive in his late 70s but recently recalled from retirement to supervise the company’s marketing. The silver-haired showman tried to talk up GM’s prospects, but what his audience really wanted to know was why it had suddenly lost its second boss this year.

The short answer is that GM’s independent directors had decided that Mr Henderson, who had spent almost his entire career at the firm, was not the man to get it out of the mire it had sunk into over the decades. Both Ford and Chrysler, GM’s two big American rivals, have installed outsiders to lead dramatic overhauls. Moreover, GM’s new chairman, Edward Whitacre—put there by the government, which now owns a majority stake in the firm—has his own ideas about the way forward, and has taken over as interim chief executive. …

Use Social Media For Fun Events

October 29th, 2009 | No Comments

Small business owners and entrepreneurs are sold on social media. By now the vast majority know it is a tool they need to use for building community and promotions. But the “how” is still a lingering frustration for many of them.
In this post we’ll give you a great example of just that. How to use [...]

Steve Parker: Tell Bob Lutz what GM must do now

July 16th, 2009 | No Comments

With the Core Four divisions of Cadillac, Chevrolet, Buick and GMC, and with Bob Lutz back on-board, General Motors is now very much on its…

Steve Parker: What!?! Bob Lutz back at GM!

July 11th, 2009 | No Comments

General Motors has come out of bankruptcy after a somewhat-biblical 40 days and nights of massive reorganization, as a new, smaller company more than 60%…