AD #2298 – Geely Now Daimler’s Largest Shareholder, Nissan Introduces New SUV, FCA’s Ralph Gilles a Hero

On today’s show…Ralph Gilles is not only the head designer for FCA, he’s a superhero…Geely drops a bombshell on Daimler and everyone’s up in arms…and why Nissan realized the Leaf needed all-new styling. All that and more coming right up on Autoline Daily.

This is Autoline Daily the show for enthusiasts of the automotive industry.

GEELY NOW DAIMLER’S LARGEST SHAREHOLDER
Never a dull moment in the automotive industry. Geely dropped a bomb by announcing it is now the largest shareholder in Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz. Li Shufu is the guy who started Geely and he’s amassing an amazing automotive empire. Geely’s portfolio now includes Volvo car, Volvo truck, the sports car manufacturer Lotus, the Malaysian automaker Proton, London EV which makes the London cabs and Terrafugia, the American company designing flying cars.

GEELY FACING PUSHBACK FROM DAIMLER STAKE
But buying 9.7% of Daimler is not going down well in Europe. Bloomberg reports that Daimler is trying to prevent him from getting a board seat because it competes against both Volvo Car and Volvo Truck. Also, Daimler has partnerships with Chinese automakers BAIC and BYD. Li Shufu is an amazing guy. The 54-year-old was born dirt poor, and still speaks like a country bumpkin, but he’s putting together a powerful automotive conglomerate. Keep an eye on this guy because we’re going to be hearing a lot more about him.  

DAIMLER SUSPECTED OF USING DEFEAT DEVICES
Besides Geely, the people at Daimler sure have their hands full. The German newspaper, Bild am Sonntag, reports that some Mercedes-Benz models were equipped with defeat devices similar to what Volkswagen used. That’s based on a U.S. Department of Justice investigation, which alleges the automaker developed several software programs that allows the engine to run clean but only for a limited time before it would switch to a so called “Dirty Mode.” It says investigators found another software function that detects when the car is being tested on a rolling road and then increases the amount of AdBlue into the SCR system. This sure helps explain why Mercedes announced last year that it would stop selling diesels in the U.S.

Coming up next, yet another reason why Mercedes is going to be very concerned about Geely becoming its largest shareholder.

VOLVO CREATES NEW LUXURY BRAND
We’re learning more about Volvo’s plans with its Polestar brand. Just as Toyota created Lexus, Polestar is going to be Volvo’s luxury brand. It’s going to launch the brand with the Polestar 1, a high-performance, hybrid coupe with unmistakable Volvo design language. But after that all the vehicles will be battery electrics and will not be styled to look like Volvo’s at all. Moreover, the Polestar brand will be sold in separate dealerships. In fact, existing Volvo dealers will not necessarily get the new franchise, as Volvo seeks out the best of the best.

NISSAN INTRODUCES NEW SUV
And while most of the automotive world is moving away from body on frame vehicles, Nissan is showing off a new SUV called the Terra, which uses a body on frame. It’s part of a push to increase light commercial vehicles sales more than 40% by 2022 and become a global leader in pickups and frame-based SUVs.

FCA’S RALPH GILLES A HERO
Some are calling Ralph Gilles, the head of design at FCA, a hero. While he and his wife, Doris were coming home from an event late last Sunday, they were the first ones to come on the scene of an accident. No one else was there and they stopped to see what they could do. A drunk driver in a Ford Edge hit a Ford Fiesta head on and the people in the Fiesta were trapped inside. As that was going on, a Buick LeSabre came along and plowed right into the Fiesta, pushing it into the Edge, which caught on fire. Thinking quickly, Gilles jumped in his Jeep Wrangler, pushed the burning Edge away from the other cars. Unfortunately, the passenger of the Fiesta was later pronounced dead, but Gilles is credited with saving the life of the driver. Gilles said it was fortunate he was not driving his Dodge Challenger because he did not think it would have had the traction to push the burning car away. What a story.

Coming up next, we’ll take a look at why Nissan wanted to change the styling on the Leaf.

WHY THE LEAF’S STYLING IS MORE MAINSTREAM
The styling of the original Nissan Leaf is a bit quirky looking but the new model is more mainstream. On Autoline After Hours we were joined by Christopher Reed, the VP of Engineering of the Nissan Leaf and talked about why the company made that decision.

(The AAH preview is only available in the video version of today’s show.)

For a deeper dive into the all-new Nissan Leaf, you can watch that entire discussion right now on Autoline.tv or on our YouTube channel.

But that’s it for today, thanks for watching and please join us again tomorrow.