Car


THE CASE OF SAAB AUTOMOBILE AB – From core capabilities into core rigidities – A trajectory towards demise (Second Part)

THE FIRST PART GM‘s decision to develop products for a wider market (thus losing appeal in the eyes of historical customers) and inconsistent industrial choices (“sometimes it seemed that everything had to be produced in Rüsselsheim, other times in Trollhättan, even Opel cars”) lead to an inevitable decline in sales. Only the collapse recorded in 1996 (90,000 cars) convinced the Americans...

THE CASE OF SAAB AUTOMOBILE AB – From core capabilities into core rigidities – A trajectory towards demise (Part First)

Let’s leave for a post the flow of memories of managers, mechanics, racers, designers and specialized journalists to deal with how the academic world has recreated and explained an event that has left enthusiasts from all over the world and an entire nation stunned: the bankruptcy from Saab in 2011. Giacomo Buzzoni and Magnus Eklund, students of the University of Gothenburg, analysed without biases...

Gilles Villeneuve 40 years later

To pay homage to Gilles Villeneuve, this post comes out exceptionally on Sunday; in the occasion of 40th anniversary of the demise of the talented Ferrari driver. Saturday 8 May 1982, during the tests of the Belgian Gran Prix, Gilles Villeneuve had an accident with Jochen Mass’ March; the Canadian’s Ferrari flew in the air, the seat belt attachments failed, the driver suffered very serious...

2021, the list of the most read posts on Automotive Space

11 Years of AUTOMOTIVE SPACE and also this year we publish the list of most read posts! I chose to publish the 10 most read posts to understand what is more interesting for our readers and give a list of posts, to the readers, that the Community deem worthy of being read. Automotive Space is on line since 11 years (with about 290 posts issued); please, contact us ([email protected]) if you...

Hybrid and electric cars and the return to… the past

Electric Cars
We now have got used to reading about hybrid and electric cars. We also begin to know more about it, about the declared potential and also the real ones. We are told that the future of mobility is the electric car, the hybrid car is the transition and having doubts about this means being a retrograde polluter. Notwithstanding reading about hybrid and electric cars and their performance it really seems...

Do we ask the customer for leading feedback or a specific consultancy?

feedback
The more structured dealers, with or without the support of the companies they work for, have set up monitoring systems for their activities through the release of feedback from customers since years. It is not often an “autonomous” job, but it derives by the fact that car manufacturers recognize a reward when this feedback is above a certain percentage. Not all customers are contacted...

Customer Experience has become the key point of sales during the Covid

Customer Experience
The SARS-Cov 2 pandemic and the related lockdown that was generated in a first phase and, today in a second one, have brought to light several problems left open over the years and above all they have accelerated various processes that would have had longer development and application times. In particular the adoption of the home working, which maybe isn’t yet so smart, has widely spread due...

There will be a “disruptive” change for car dealers as well?

autonomous_guide_car-420x236
Will this pandemic actually be the acceleration of changes in every production sector, and therefore also in the automotive field? Will the car no longer be the same as we known it? Maybe yes, and probably the car is at the moment in the same phase which the typewriter or the Kodak paper experienced in the 80s, that is, we are trying to perfect an old model to the maximum, but we aren’t actually...

FIAT Electric cars (the ones from the old days)

x-1-23-in-citta-420x386
It is said that Fiat falls behind in programs of models’ innovation, specially about electric and hybrid vehicles. It is said that this is one of the reasons, which led the company – for a long time now known as FCA, the name Fiat only refers to the brand – to the fusion with the PSA group. It’s possible. Fiat has faced tumultuous events since 2000 and the choices taken under...

What do Toyoda, Fehrenbach and Vettel have in common? The good sense!

Toyoda, Fehrenbach, Vettel
In recent weeks, the statements of three people considered – rightly – serious and followed have gone almost unnoticed. Akyo Toyoda is President of Toyota and also President of the Association of Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Franz Fehrenbach is Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Bosch, one of the leading manufacturers of automotive components. Sebastian Vettel needs no introduction It...

Covid 19. At the recovery, will the transport system be the same?

Corona virus
I don’t want to be one of those, too many, who pontificate how the Covid 19 will change the world. Allow me, however, to express a couple of considerations about how, at the end of this stage of restrictions, our behaviour and those around us will change. Let’s start from the car and its use. Until yesterday, the general policy of governments and local administrators was to discourage the...

Coronavirus and the three points of no return for the automotive

One of the fields, which will be more affected from the Coronavirus, is, with any doubt, the heavy industry and, among them, in Europe the automotive. The whole supply chain is suffering the consequences of a sudden collapse in the final demand; the recovery won’t be immediate at all simply because the EU market is a substitutional one and therefore the demand curve is very elastic to negative...

The world in electric is revolutionizing the nautical too

It seems there is no doubt, they way we’ll move in the future must be electric; convinced or not, everyone is going in this direction. Legislators, media, car dealers and marketing offices have started down a road, which seems with no return but, if you think it involves the automotive field only, you are wrong. It seems the yachting sector and the commercial shipping have made the same choice. Autonomy...

JIT and JIS, how the Covid is changing the Automotive Industry

factory
It has been talking a lot (specially on every social Network) about the COVID-19 impact on everyday life; but it’s interesting to me looking at the effects on the OEM and their organization. For some decades, the automotive has been “merely” an assembly industry. No generalist OEM produces, but is limited to designing and participating in the industrialization of the project; the...

Service and CRM lesson from dentists, gas station attendants and tyre dealers

Service
About twenty years ago, as I started my carrier in the automotive field, I was clearly told that Dealers, would have always done more business on the After Sales and on mortgages. More in general the “Service” would have been the real key point of incomes in a medium and long term. From the simple inspection to the MOT, the tire change, the insurance, the second handed car for the young...

Safety of Vehicles in the European Union

After 10 years from the first introduction of the regulations about General Safety and Pedestrian Safety, the European Union introduces a new one about the General Safety of Motor Vehicles and their Occupiers and safety of vulnerable road users (like pedestrians and riders). The new rule updates the existing directions of vehicles safety described in the regulation (CE) 661/2009 about the General Safety,...

Self-driving even at sea

While the route of cars with self-driving proceeds towards trials, agreements and insurance and legislative formulations, nautical and commercial shipping fields move in the direction of Self-navigation. The boost, again, comes from the Northern Europe, in the specific from Norway, the same country which sees the market of electric cars goes up of 31% for registrations in 2018 (over 40% if we include...

The possible evolution: from workshop to the web

digital
Car dealerships today are one of the few economic realities which haven’t totally understood the Web potential, as well as the social networks one, for their own development in sales and customer management. At least 50% of dealerships uses the same car manufacturer websites with only few adjustments. We often see websites which: Don’t provide any dialog box for customers; Don’t...

Dallara – It’s a beautiful story

Dallara
Cesare Fiorio, Frank Williams, Mario Andretti, Jean Todt (and other racing drivers and managers) describe not one but several beautiful stories, all of them referring to Giampaolo Dallara. Frank Williams (several Formula 1’s world championship winner) thinks that Giampaolo Dallara is very similar to his technical director (“He’s a Patrick Head-type of engineer to whom the fundamentals of physics...

Dealer Governance, not anymore an option!

Governance
The crisis and even more the false recovery of last two years, have made it immediate the need of a true company/Dealer governance to be independent of the property. Several times on this blog, in my opinion, we talked about the real “lack” that affects the medium-large Italian Dealer; the existence of a clear governance, defined and above all totally released from ownership. It seemed...

Dealers Management Control: a stranger?

budget
It seems strange, but still today there are dealers with millionaire turnovers, which have Management Control limited only to aspects of the official budget, often managed in outsourcing. All very useful data, of course, but that underline an already consolidated state; forcing the company, often, for sudden and late solutions. The main point is that the dealer focused on himself, or on trusted men,...

Productivity optimization in the After Sales

productivity
Recently, more and more often, the request made by those who own a business in the After Sales is that to increase the productivity. The common query is: “My incomes are decreased, the only thing I can increase is the productivity per employee, how we can do it?” The productivity of an automotive business is based on several factors both internal and external; we will shortly analyse them. We...

The After-Sales and the Digital, are we sure this is the right direction?

officina
In the middle of Digital Revolution, did you think the Post-Sale had been saved? Wrong! After the slogan – far from having been stopped yet – that “if the dealers do not turn to digital are intended to die“, the new fashion 2017 is the “Digital”. Forgive my irony, but if, by chance, you are not digital, be aware that you won’t be able to stay on the market...

Enzo Ferrari: Power, Politics and the Making of an Automobile Empire

Enzo Ferrari: Power, Politics and the Making of an Automobile Empire
Among the merits of this book there is the description of Enzo Ferrari during his first forty years, before he became the most acclaimed, successful (and published) car manufacturer in the world. The Luca Dal Monte‘s description (enriched even thanks to the memories of Franco Gozzi, who was thirty years at the side of the Drake) is enlightening: Enzo Ferrari is a person with an intelligence out...

Remember those great Volkswagen ads?

Remember those great Volkswagen ads?
In 1959 Volkswagen was at a turning point: in the previous year it sold 150,000 Beetles in the USA, dangerously approaching the maximum result obtainable through the word-of-mouth among customers. To avoid the stagnating sales the choice is only one: to develop an advertising campaign. The DDB won the selection among 400 advertisers,until then the DDB had advertised department stores, (Israeli) airlines,...

2018, the list of the most read posts on Automotive Space

read
Also this year we like to publish the list of most read posts, from begin, of Automotive Space! I chose to publish the 10 most read posts to understand what is more interesting for our readers and give a list of posts, to readers, that the Community deem worthy of being read. Automotive Space is on line since 8 years (with about 230 posts issued) and sometimes publish a fewer number of posts because...

What do I have to expect if I choose a hydrogen-powered car?

hydrogen-car
We have come to the end of my overview of alternative fuels, compared to the “classic” petrol and diesel, which we can currently find available in the lists of the main OEMs. Today I would like to talk about hydrogen as fuel, which has only recently hit the headlines as the most ecological fuel ever! You will find, at the end of this post, the links to the other posts concerning the other...

What do I have to expect if I choose an electric car?

evs
We have finally reached the third type of  “alternative” power source, currently offered by OEMs on the market. After the well known sources, that is LPG and CNG, I examined the various type of “hybrid power source“, in three specific posts whose links you will find at the end of this article. In this new post I tried to outline the characteristic elements of power supply in...

What do I have to expect if I choose a hybrid car? (Parallel/series)

The last post about cars with hybrid engine will focus on one of my projects, but never place on the market, when I worked at the Fiat planning department. The only vehicle with a parallel/series hybrid propulsion, produced and tested on the road, was the Fiat Multipla Hybrid. Produced in ten copies, and destined for the City of Naples in the context of the Atena Project (The Telematic Traffic Environment...

What do I have to expect if I choose a hybrid car? (Hybrid series)

supercapacitor
In this search for the perfect engine for our daily needs, we will now focus on the second type of hybrid; the hybrid series. Also in the hybrid series we have two motors, thermal and electric but, unlike the parallel, it is the electric motor that is always connected to the driving wheels; the thermal engine connected to a generator produces energy wich will go both to the electric traction motor...