When Scott Keogh, President, Audi of America, was at the 2013 Washington Auto Show he talked to Lou Ann Hammond, CEO, www.drivingthenation.com, about the difference diesel has made in the United States, “Since Audi brought out its first diesel in 2009 till now, it has reduced US fuel consumption by 4.6 million gallons, it has [...]
Detlev von Platen, President and CEO of Porsche Cars North America, Inc. (PCNA), talked to Lou Ann Hammond, CEO, www.drivingthenation.com, about Jerry Seinfeld’s 911, 50 years of Porsche, the new GT3 and the awards Porsche won at the 2013 New York International Auto show (NYIAS). Porsche already has a Cayenne diesel and a Panamera hybrid. [...]
Mike Siegrist, Assistant Chief Engineer, General Motors Powertrains, took time to talk to www.drivingthenation.com about General Motors new Chevy Cruze clean diesel engine. What did General Motors have to modify on this European engine for the American market? Is this a General Motors engine, or was it purchased from another company? Volkswagen’s diesel engine is [...]
California is a critical state for Mazda. Robert Davis, Senior Vice President for U.S. Operations, reminds me that they are headquartered in California, so he knows the California Air Resources Board (CARB) emissions requirements all too well. “We’re a smaller manufacturer, so the ability to meet the requirements they give us are a little bit [...]
Currently about 3 percent of all light-duty passenger car sales are diesel. Twelve percent of all car take rates, as of August, 2008, were diesels. Fast forward to August, 2012 and 30% of all car take rates were diesel. In the video, Bernd Boisten explains take rate – if a vehicle is offered as a [...]
I was at the 2013 Washington auto show and met some of the Robert Bosch LLC, Diesel Systems North American engineers. They showed me some of the new clean diesel projects they were working on. Bosch predicts there will 54 diesel vehicles available in the U.S. by 2017 in North America, including 22 new models [...]
Tim Mahoney, Volkswagen’s Vice President of Product and Marketing, Volkswagen North America, talked to Lou Ann Hammond, CEO, www.drivingthenation.com, about Volkswagen’s new Beetle and record sales growth. There were snickers behind the executives of Volkswagen AG’s backs when they said they wanted a certain number of sales, but Volkswagen’s sales are increasing, along with the [...]
Mark Del Rosso, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, of Audi of America, talked to Lou Ann Hammond, CEO, www.drivingthenation.com about Audi in California. Is Audi looking at bringing in more mid-size and sub-compact cars? How did Audi produce better results in 2012 than they did in 2011? How are diesel sales for Audi? [...]
Four days into the job of President of Audi of America Scott Keogh stopped and talked to Lou Ann Hammond, CEO, www.drivingthenation.com. Keogh has been with Audi for 6 years as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Many of Audi’s marketing programs are in place while Keogh was at that helm. Now he takes over as President. [...]
We always have left over questions from the previous chat, and I try to find out as much as I can. We left off on the last chat with someone asking about failures in High Pressure Fuel Pump (HPFP) in Diesel Vehicles. There does appear to be a NHTSA investigation open about this subject. We [...]
2013 Volkswagen Jetta hybrid
2013 Subaru XV Crosstrek
2013 Nissan Sentra
2013 Nissan Juke
2013 Lexus LX570