Page 36 - On The Move 18-4

Stellantis Names Former Ford Marketing Ford Introduces Commercial Vehicle
Exec Feuell as CEO of Chrysler Brand Leadership Team

Stellantis is bringing in a former Ford Ford Motor Co. in September announced multiple hires for its newly
marketing executive to lead its Chrysler created Ford Pro commercial vehicle business, a key pillar of the company's
brand. Christine Feuell, who held numer- growth plans under CEO Jim Farley.
ous roles at Ford, including director of glob- The six appointments, who will all report to Ford Pro CEO Ted Cannis,
al marketing strategy, joined Stellantis in are a mix of company insiders and outside talent. The announcement came
early September and reports to CEO Carlos as the company prepares to launch the E-Transit van in the coming months,
Tavares, the automaker said in a news re- followed by the F-150 Lightning next year.
lease. "We've put together an experienced Ford Pro leadership team that
Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis was leading is completely focused on helping commercial and government customers
the Chrysler brand on an interim basis be- increase uptime and reduce ownership costs," Cannis said in a statement.
fore the hire. "With customer productivity as our north star, this leadership team and our
Feuell helms a brand that is short on employees around the world are going to change how business in the com-
product and in need of direction, but she'll mercial vehicle space is done."
be given time to turn it around. Tavares Four of the six new hires come from within the company.
said in May that he's affording each of the • Tim Baughman, who has spent more than 25 years
14 brands melded together from the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA working in multiple roles with the automaker and most
Group a 10-year window to execute a business plan. recently was controller for U.S. marketing, sales and ser-
In the U.S., Chrysler sells two minivans and the long-running Chrysler 300. vice, has been named Ford Pro's general manager, North
Dealers and analysts have said Chrysler lacks purpose and could use more product, America.
including a crossover, to flesh out the lineup. • Muffi Ghadiali, CEO of Electriphi, a charging manage-
Feuell most recently was chief commercial officer at Honeywell Safety and ment and software company acquired by Ford in June,
Productivity Solutions. She also has held marketing leadership roles at seating sup- will become head of Ford Pro Charging. He will continue
plier Adient and Johnson Controls. in his role with Electriphi.
Tavares said in a statement: "Christine heading Chrysler is great news for Stel- • Navin Kumar, who most recently worked within Ford
lantis and I'm convinced that she will play an integral and strategic role in setting Autonomous Vehicles, will become Ford Pro CFO. Prior to
the new impetus and direction for this iconic brand and unleash its great poten- working for Ford, he was an investment banker at Gug-
tial." genheim Partners in New York focused on automotive
Source: Automotive News and technology mergers and acquisitions, according to
the automaker.
• Rahul Singh, most recently head of software develop-
ment for Ford Autonomous Vehicles, will become Ford
Pro chief technology officer.
VW Planning to Re-lease its Used EVs Among the company outsiders, Ford hired Tracey Pass, previously vice
as Strategy to Keep Hold of Batteries president of human resources at The Walt Disney Company, to become Ford
Pro's chief human resources officer.
Ford also hired Wanda Young, previously chief marketing officer of
Volkswagen plans to crack an industry barrier and offer used-vehicle Samsung Electronics America, as Ford Pro's marketing chief.
leases on its ID family of electric vehicles, including those in North America, Source: Automotive News
as a strategy to keep control over their valuable batteries, VW executives told
Automotive News. "We will have the second lease product; we've preplanned it already,"
Speaking with journalists here at the Munich auto show, Volkswagen Keogh said, adding that the preset residual values would keep EVs in custom-
Group CEO Herbert Diess said the secondary leases would allow VW to recycle ers' hands for up to eight years, at which time they would be returned, their
the valuable battery packs into new uses, including home power centers and batteries stripped out, and the vehicle recycled back into raw materials.
fast chargers. "The task for our organization is to really try to keep hold of the batter-
"In Europe, we are trying to get a second lease and even a third lease, ies, and probably get into a second or third lease cycle for the car and then
and keep the car in our hands," Diess told a group of American automotive reuse the batteries," Diess explained. "In the regions, it has to be worked out,
journalists, adding later that the same plan would be rolled out in North it has to be agreed with the dealers, but we would like to keep every one of
America. "Battery life, we think today is about 1,000 charging cycles and the batteries forever."
around 350,000 kilometers [about 215,000 miles], something like that. So, Source: Automotive News
the battery would probably live longer than the car, and we want to get hold
of the battery. We don't want to give the battery away."
Diess said the battery's value survives even as the value of the car sur-
rounding it depreciates over time, and he said that value could help keep re-
sidual values high, making secondary leases more affordable.
"There already is an indication that residuals for electric cars might be
higher than for [internal combustion] cars because, even if the car is totally
worthless, still there is a battery," that may still have 70 or 80 percent of its
original energy storage capacity, Diess said.
Since it began arriving in the U.S. in March, about 80 percent of the
6,230 VW ID4s the brand has sold in the U.S. have been leased, said Scott
Keogh, CEO of VW Group of America.

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