+++ AUDI ’s performance cars “need to change”, but will continue to play an integral role in the company’s model line-up. Board member HJ Rothenbieler said that although there are no immediate plans to consolidate the line-up, S and RS performance cars will be adapted to suit customer demand and stringent emissions regulations. The current RS6 and RS4 have already made the move to smaller capacity V6 engines, with the V10 powered R8 flagship set to be reborn in 2022 as an electric supercar. The recently revealed e-Tron GT is the first step, said the brand, in the electrification of its range of performance vehicles. Keen to maintain its “sporty DNA”, according to Rothenbieler, Audi will keep producing performance icons in the same vein as the Quattro and R8, and is actively considering retaining the TT sports car in some form. Sales potential, however, will be a concern. CEO Bram Schot said: “We cannot afford to develop cars which do not respond to our customers’ wishes”. Various S models are included in the brand’s future product strategy, although Audi plans for the E-tron GT to serve as a benchmark for upcoming sports models. Rothenbieler said Audi Sport’s red logo reflected its performance ethos, but could be adapted to incorporate green as a sign of its electric potential. The ‘emotional’ aspect of driving S and RS models will remain, said the panel, with electrified powertrains capable of much quicker acceleration than their conventionally fuelled counterparts, and associated steering and suspension technology allowing for greater driver control. +++
+++ BMW ’s full-year operating profit fell 7.9 percent to €9.12 billion, beating analyst expectations thanks to cost and efficiency measures, even as the German carmaker warned about a difficult year ahead. Chief Executive Harald Krüger said: “The challenges facing the entire sector are unlikely to diminish in the coming months. Great efforts will therefore be needed across the entire Group to help shape the sector’s transformation under such conditions”. The earnings before interest and taxes were higher than the €8.94 billion anticipated in a poll. The carmaker said its return on sales for the automotive division fell to 7.2 % compared with 9.2 % a year earlier, as investments into electric cars and difficulties getting cars certified to new emissions tests weighed on profit. BMW announced that it will be ramping up cost cutting measures. Chief among the efforts will be to reduce the number of vehicle variants it offers. The first casualty of BMW’s new initiative will be the 3 Series Gran Turismo. It is also reorganizing its board of management “to create a new leaner, future-oriented structure. We are restructuring our divisions to give us the best possible foundation for the future. It sends out a clear signal that our organization is lean and efficient throughout the company”, Krüger said.
+++ Over the past decade, exports from automakers in CHINA to emerging markets have thinned to a trickle after key regions such as Russia, Brazil, North Africa and the Middle East encountered economic or social instability. Now, equipped with better technology and a new generation of products, Chinese car brands are regrouping to expand overseas by targeting Europe and a select group of major emerging markets. Leading the effort are Geely (the largest domestic Chinese passenger vehicle maker) and Great Wall Motor, China’s largest light-truck manufacturer. The trade dispute between China and the United States has prompted Geely to suspend plans to build vehicles under its premium Lynk & Co brand at Volvo Car’s plant in South Carolina. But the company remains committed to launch the brand to Europe. Lynk & Co, whose products share the platform as the Volvo XC40, will launch sales in Western Europe in the first half of 2020, Geely President An Conghui told journalists in the south China city of Zhuhai, where he kicked off sales of the first multipurpose vehicle for the Geely brand. In addition to Lynk & Co’s products, the company plans to introduce Geely-badged vehicles, including the MPV, in Europe, An noted, though he stopped short of providing more details on the plan. After acquiring a 49.9 % stake in Malaysian car brand Proton in 2017, Geely has made Southeast Asia one of its main export markets. In December, it started shipping the right-hand-drive version of the Boyue, Geely’s top-selling compact crossover in China, to Malaysia. The vehicle is now distributed there under the Proton brand. Following the Boyue, Geely plans to market and sell more products, including the MPV, through Proton’s dealerships, An added. The vehicles will eventually be assembled at Proton’s plant and sold in Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries, according to Geely’s plan. In 2017, Geely opened an assembly plant in Borisov, Belarus. The factory, which builds the Boyue, will supply Russia and other countries in the former Soviet Union after capacity is boosted to add other products. Like Geely, Great Wall also treats Russia and its neighboring countries such as Belarus and Kazakhstan as a key market. Great Wall’s new assembly plant in the Tula Oblast region of central Russia is to begin output in the coming month, with annual capacity of up to 150,000 vehicles. The factory will produce SUVs and crossovers for Great Wall’s Haval brand. But Great Wall’s global ambitions are not stopping there. It is preparing to sell SUVs under its premium Wey brand and subcompact sedans under its electric vehicle marque Ora in Europe. Great Wall just signed a deal with German vehicle tuning specialist Brabus to revamp the powertrain, interior and exterior of its Wey-badged SUVs for European customers. The first Wey SUV adapted under the partnership will be displayed this year at the Frankfurt auto show. Great Wall also expects to launch a subcompact electric car under the Ora brand in Western Europe in late 2020, Michael Ning, vice president of Great Wall, told. Great Wall is not the only domestic Chinese automaker seeking to sell electric vehicles in Europe. Chery unveiled an electric crossover in 2017 at the Frankfurt auto show while BAIC displayed a concept electric crossover this month at the Geneva auto show. Meanwhile, several EV startups have disclosed plans to enter Europe. Two of them are targeting sales in Europe before year end: Aiways expects to distribute an electric compact crossover while Byton plans to sell an electric crossover. U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs have slowed China’s automakers’ moves to establish sales in the U.S. but there are no signs their renewed enthusiasm to venture into other markets has been affected. +++
+++ Automakers from Detroit and Tokyo, Seoul and Stuttgart and all points in between invariably introduce each new ELECTRIC VEHICLE as their own ‘Tesla killer’. Despite the increased competition and a number of other problems it faces, Tesla has grown rapidly. Meanwhile, EV sales by the rest of the industry remain feeble. If there is an electrified silver bullet, though, it may have been forged in Wolfsburg, Ingolstadt and Stuttgart. That’s where Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche have shaved off nearly a third of the costs of developing EVs. How? By using shared platforms and modules from their existing parts bins to build a coming fleet of battery-electric vehicles. Tesla, which makes nothing but EVs, doesn’t have that option. The Audi e-tron is the first of what Volkswagen Group promises will be a wave of 70 electric models (good for 22 million sales globally) across its many brands over the next 10 years. Almost all of those coming vehicles will ride on a pair of common platforms. One, known as MEB, will cover smaller EVs, mostly by Volkswagen and European brands Skoda and Seat, such as the Volkswagen I.D. Crozz scheduled to go into production and begin U.S. deliveries in 2020. The other, known as PPE, will cover larger EVs, including the Porsche Macan and future models largely from Porsche and Audi. “Group synergies in development reduces costs by 30 %”, said Hans-Joachim Rothenpieler, who heads technical development on the Audi Board of Management. Audi plans to market its upcoming EVs at a price point roughly equivalent to the premium it used to charge for a model with a turbodiesel engine. The VW brand plans to do the same with its electric fleet, including a Golf-size EV it calls the ID.3 that will be built starting this year and go on sale in Europe for under €30,000. Because Audi sits in the middle of Volkswagen Group’s brand lineup (above the eponymous VW brand and below Porsche) its designers and engineers can feel free to borrow liberally from both when developing an EV. They also are free to pull pre-existing modules from Audi’s own combustion engine lineup. “You will see a lot of modules being used in the combustion engine world and in the electric world because those modules are not affected by the question of the drivetrain”, said Stefan Niemand, head of electrification for Audi. On the e-Tron, Niemand said, “You see the axles, the suspension, the brake system from the Q7. You see the seats taken from the A6. You see the infotainment system taken from the A8”. On a corporate level, Volkswagen has deployed a platform strategy across its many brands for years as an effective way to shave design and supply costs from its global lineup. It’s one of the main reasons the automaker has remained profitable, even through a diesel emissions crisis that has cost it well in excess of $30 billion. Doing the same thing with its coming fleet of EVs “is not really radically different from the internal combustion world. You know, it was a very successful approach”, Niemand said. “The platform of the Q7 is also used by the Porsche Cayenne and by the VW Touareg, and you will see the same for the PPE. At the moment, Audi and Porsche are building cars on this platform, and I believe in the future, there will be more brands building more brands on this platform”. +++
+++ FORD is to cut 5,000 jobs in Germany and an undisclosed number in the UK as part of a massive efficiency drive, which the company hopes will turn around results that saw it rack up European losses of €230 million in the third financial quarter. The restructuring is part of a €16 billion global cost-cutting programme, includes splitting the business in the region into 3 groups, for commercial vehicles, passenger vehicles and imports respectively. Ford is also planning to boost production of its strongest European-made cars. As well as job losses, the company will be axing “less profitable vehicle lines”, and shifting away from MPVs to SUVs. Production of the (Grand) C-Max in Germany is ceasing and Ford’s gearbox factory in Bordeaux, France is to close. The news comes the day after Ford’s CEO, Jim Hackett, was revealed to have received total compensation of around €16 million in 2018. A company statement said the company has “offered voluntary separation programs for employees in Germany and the UK to help accelerate the plan and return to sustainable profitability. Through these programs and other initiatives, Ford of Germany expects to reduce its headcount in excess of 5,000 jobs, including temporary staff. The total number of positions impacted in the UK is still to be determined”. As well as redundancies, Ford intends to “leverage relationships” such as “the potential alliance with Volkswagen” in its global strategy plan, a move likely to further increase the company’s presence in the commercial vehicle market. Ford will also significantly increase the number of electrified models in its range, with every car “from the all-new Focus onward” including an “electrified option”; be it a full EV or hybrid powertrain, or a ‘mild’ hybrid capable of recouping energy from regenerative braking, and aiding acceleration via a beefed-up alternator. The new Transit (due later in 2019) will also be available with an electrified option, while Ford has confirmed an “all-new Mustang-inspired performance SUV” will be unveiled in 2020. Ford employs around 54,000 in Europe. The company is targeting a 6 % profit margin in Europe, which would be higher than has previously been achieved in the region. +++
+++ In GERMANY , BMW and Varta have both applied for state funding aimed at supporting battery cell production for electric vehicles. Germany has earmarked €1 billion euros to support a consortium looking to produce electric car battery cells and plans to fund a research facility to develop next-generation solid-state batteries. BMW is seeking funds for research and development in the field of battery cells, a spokesman for the group said, adding this does not mean the company aims to produce them itself. He said that the funding application would not necessarily lead to the carmaker participating in a consortium. Meantime, Varta said it was planning to hike production of battery cells to over 60 million cells per year, adding that it was cooperating with European partners to advance European battery cell production. Germany, Europe’s top economy, wants to cut reliance of its carmakers on Asian battery suppliers and protect jobs at home that may be at risk from a global shift away from combustion engines. Skeptics have noted that Germany’s efforts might be too little too late as the production of electric vehicle battery cells is dominated by companies from China, South Korea and Japan. Overall, 6 consortia applied for state subsidies at Germany’s Economy Ministry, 2 people familiar with the matter said. 1 of the people said that German battery maker BMZ Group had formed a consortium with Deutsche Post’s Streetscooter, German start-up e.Go Mobile AG and Ford’s German subsidiary. A spokesman for Deutsche Post only said that security of supply of battery cells for its Streetscooter was important. Volkswagen said nothing had been decided yet. +++
+++ Since his conditional release from the Tokyo Detention House earlier this month, former Nissan chairman Carlos GHOSN has remained tight-lipped about his case and unusual predicament, even ignoring the questions shouted out by the reporters who swarm him when he goes out for walks. His legal team, on the other hand, maintain he is actually willing to hold a news conference. They said one hasn’t been scheduled yet because his health (allegedly affected by more than 100 days in detention) needs more time to recover and their strategies must be hammered out first. Still, a news conference could take place sometime soon. And legal and communications experts not involved in the former Nissan CEO’s case warn he may be wading into treacherous waters, as his remarks pertaining to the allegations against him could be used by prosecutors when he goes to trial. “If Ghosn refers to specifics of the cases in a news conference, then it is full of risk and there’s nothing good about it”, said Yasuyuki Takai, an attorney and a former prosecutor at the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office. Junichiro Hironaka, one of Ghosn’s attorneys, told that his client is asking for more time to contemplate what he wants to say at a news conference. Takai speculated the 65-year-old French former auto executive is determined to hold a news conference because he wants to tilt public opinion in his favor; a strategy Ghosn apparently thought was effective in helping secure his release on bail. “He is thinking that as he asserts his innocence on more occasions toward the audience both inside and outside Japan, the foreign media’s coverage will (pressure) the country, which would work to his advantage in a trial taking place in Japan”, Takai said. His legal team is well aware of the risks associated with having a news conference, so Hironaka may be reluctant to set one up, Takai said. If it happens, he added, Ghosn will be asked to refrain from talking about the accusations and focus on matters that won’t be challenged in the trial, such as Nissan’s future, the Japanese legal system’s use of prolonged detentions or whether executives at the Japanese carmaker plotted against him. It is rare for a defendant in a criminal case to hold a news conference before trial because of the danger of entrapping oneself, said Shigeru Nakajima, a lawyer based in Tokyo who practices transactional law. Ghosn was arrested Nov. 19 upon returning to Japan and was accused of deliberately underreporting his income in financial documents. Tokyo prosecutors served him two arrest warrants, including one for aggravated breach of trust resulting from the alleged transfer of private investment losses to Nissan during the 2008 global financial crisis. He was released on bail on March 6 after spending 108 days in confinement. While in detention, Ghosn challenged the charges made against him and said he had “no doubt” his arrest and ousting were the result of a “plot and treason” by Nissan executives who were opposed to his strategy to integrate Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi even further. Shin Ushijima, a corporate lawyer, said the legal team’s presence at any conference would reduce the risks to some extent, but won’t necessarily ensure a positive outcome. At the moment, Ushijima pointed out that Ghosn’s legal team doesn’t have full access to all the evidence the prosecutors have. In addition to the legal risks that could result from potentially damaging remarks made by Ghosn, the ability of his legal team to quickly jump in, filter the questions and give proper advice is another concern, he said. The language barrier could also hamper communication, which could be problematic when discussing sensitive legal matters. “When a reporter asks questions in a question-and-answer session, it doesn’t necessarily mean Ghosn will stick to the script discussed in advance by his lawyers”, Ushijima said. In addition to these hazards, how the media will respond to the news conference is another unpredictable element, said Yu Taniguchi, editor-in-chief of monthly public relations magazine Senden Kaigi and an associate professor at the Graduate School of Information and Communication in Tokyo. Citing the media’s obsession with Ghosn’s attempt to leave in disguise when he was released on bail, Taniguchi said the domestic media has a tendency to digress from the main issues at hand. “Even if he holds a news conference, it is plausible under the current Japanese media environment that (domestic outlets) might focus on how he bowed or how he dressed”, she said. +++
+++ HONDA said any delay to Brexit must be long enough to give businesses stability whilst BMW is still preparing for a “worst-case scenario” no-deal Brexit after lawmakers backed postponing Britain’s exit from the EU. The country’s car sector, which employs more than 850,000 people, has quickly gone from a manufacturing success story to posting drops in investment, sales and output. Honda, which builds just over 10 % of Britain’s 1.5 million cars, announced earlier this year that it would close its factory, in the biggest blow to the sector in many years, but said the decision was not due to Brexit. Adding to uncertainty for companies, British lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to seek a delay to Brexit, which had been due on March 29. “We are now looking to the government to deliver a clear, legally certain, path forward to avoid no deal”, said a Honda spokesman. “Any extension must be purposeful and long enough to give business stability”. Ford, which builds nearly 1.3 million engines in Britain, said any extension “must allow for however long it takes to secure a deal that guarantees the principles of tariff-free and frictionless trade”. Since Britain voted in June 2016 to leave the European Union, companies have been triggering a series of contingency plans to help prepare for any loss of free and unfettered trade with the car industry’s biggest export market. Honda, BMW’s Mini and Rolls-Royce brands and Jaguar Land Rover (together accounting for around 55 % of UK car output) all plan to shut their factories in April from between a week to up to a month in case of any disruption from a no-deal Brexit. A delay would ruin such plans as shutdowns are generally organised months in advance so employee holidays can be scheduled and suppliers can adjust volumes. BMW, which builds over 15 % of Britain’s car output at its Mini and Rolls-Royce factories alongside more than 375,000 engines at its central English Hams Hall facility, said it was continuing to ready itself in case of a no-deal Brexit or delay. “Preparations cover all key areas of our business including manufacturing, sales, customs processes, IT and logistics”, the firm said. Earlier this month BMW said it could move some output out of Britain if the country does not secure an orderly departure from the European Union, and again called for clarity. “The BMW Group therefore continues to appeal to all sides to achieve long-term planning security, maintaining the frictionless free-trade on which our production and sales operations are based”. +++
+++ LOTUS will reveal an all-new sports car next year as its expansion under Geely ownership begins to bear fruit. The model is part of a 5-year plan that has been signed off by Geely, the new CEO Phil Popham has confirmed. The new model will be based on a heavily revised existing Lotus architecture and will appear before the next-generation Elise, Exige and Evora models. They will begin to be launched in about 3 to 4 years once the new architecture that will underpin them has been developed. Next year’s new model will retain Lotus’s famed driving dynamics while being more practical and usable every day than the existing models, with improved ingress, egress, ergonomics and infotainment, pointing to the Evora as its most likely base. It’s a bridge to the new era of Lotus sports cars, according to Popham. “There’s this one car, then the new platform”, he said. Popham will then eventually expand Lotus’s product portfolio beyond the existing sports car range. The former Jaguar Land Rover executive and Sunseeker yachts boss has yet to decide on the specifics, but SUVs are the most likely outcome. A new 7-figure, electric-powered hypercar is in development as a limited-run ‘halo’ model for this new era of Lotus, codenamed Omega, although Popham has yet to confirm this. All future Lotus models will eventually use electrification, said Popham, but in exactly what format has yet to be decided. “The focus for now is on replacing the products we’ve got today: the sports cars”, he said. “In a long time, Lotus has not had sight of what is required. You need a longterm plan, a product plan and a business plan locked down with investment. We have that plan locked in”. Lotus will also look to leverage the “huge opportunity” it has from being part of such a large and well-resourced group as Geely, said Popham. This includes “design, engineering and manufacturing opportunities” and the potential for shared architectures for future models beyond sports cars, as well as investigating the future of its engine deal with Toyota, which continues harmoniously for now. On the finances involved with Geely, Popham said: “We’re not talking tens or hundreds of millions, but billions”. On the wider role Geely can play, he said: “All conceptual work and product planning management will sit at Lotus, but we can and will sub-contract packages back into Geely. They have lots of technology capabilities, a design studio in Coventry, engineers in Sweden, Germany and China. We employed 150 engineers last year and will employ more this year while also using the resource in Geely”. Early development work has now started on the new sports car architecture, which may not necessarily retain its current bonded and extruded aluminium base if a better option is available. It will be developed to meet regulations in China and North America from the beginning. The Norfolk-based company is already expanding its Hethel headquarters, with plans approved for a new customer experience centre and museum. Lotus sold 1.630 cars last year, but Popham said the capacity was around 5.000. Hethel will remain the home of Lotus sports cars with associated investments to improve the facilities. The manufacture of future models, such as SUVs, will take place elsewhere. Beyond sports cars, Popham said Lotus could enter “a number” of segments so long as all of its models retained the brand’s core DNA. He cited Porsche as a good example of how to grow. “Our DNA of driving dynamics, performance and lack of weight mean different things in different segments, but we’ll be renowned for them in the segments we’re in”, he said. Popham added that future sports car models must take less time to make and be cheaper and more repeatable to produce as “the hours of build are too high”, while too many parts are used and their cost is also “too high”. This is the result of having architectures that have stayed in production for so long and a reason for Lotus’s inconsistent quality. To that end, Lotus sports cars should remain accessible on price, believes Popham. He’s not looking to expand the price point of its core sports car beyond today’s range.
+++ Mercedes plans to build an ultraluxury MAYBACH SUV for global markets at its U.S. plant in Alabama. The SUV, based on the all-new third-generation GLS platform, would be the most expensive passenger vehicle made in America. The model is expected to be priced at about $200,000, sources said. The unibody Mercedes-Maybach GLS would be powered by a 560-plus hp V8 engine and likely debut in China this year and go on sale early next year.
Mercedes-Benz USA CEO Dietmar Exler described the Maybach GLS as a “halo car”. The Maybach brand “stands for luxury,” Exler told. “It will help build the Mercedes brand, no question”. Mercedes hopes to introduce the Maybach brand across different models, just as it has done with its AMG performance brand. “We’ll logically extend it where it makes sense”, Exler said. “I cannot imagine you will have a Maybach A class. But on the top luxury cars, to have the luxury edition makes a whole lot of sense for us”. Mercedes’ strategic move comes as the industry’s flashiest brands roll out SUVs for the price of starter homes, lured by high margins and the prospect of younger buyers. With Aston Martin and Ferrari joining Bentley, Rolls-Royce and Lamborghini, the global market for ultraluxury SUVs should grow from around 7,500 last year to above 20,000 by 2023. About 75 % of these vehicles will be sold in the U.S. and China. A Maybach GLS is well-timed, as consumers around the world shift to the SUV body style as their preferred vehicle and as high-net-worth populations surge, said Tim Urquhart, an analyst in London with IHS Markit. “Luxury SUVs are taking off. It’s what a big section of the market wants”, he said. An SUV also could help freshen Maybach’s brand. The Mercedes-Maybach S class is associated with older demographics of the high-end market. Sedans are perceived by many consumers to be old-fashioned, said Ed Kim, automotive analyst at AutoPacific. “The ultra-high-net-worth kids want something different, and these ultraluxury SUVs certainly fit that”, he said. IHS’ Urquhart sees strong demand from America’s Instagram-obsessed celebrities and sports stars. “The U.S. market pretty much revived the G class, the G wagon and the AMG variants of that”, he said. The Maybach GLS will “appeal to the Kardashians and hip-hoppers, if they want something slightly different to the G wagon”, Ultraluxury SUVs, which often share platforms with much less expensive vehicles, are cash cows for automakers. The $165,000 Bentley Bentayga, for instance, shares a platform with the $53,550 Audi Q7. SUVs generate the revenue that funds the R&D of the flagship sports cars that premium automakers have built their brands on, Kim said. “Without Cayenne, Porsche would not have the kind of money available to make 911s”, he said. Mercedes launched U.S. manufacturing in Vance Alabama in 1997, building a single truck-based M-class SUV using low-cost supply lines and plastic trim parts. Present-day Mercedes-Benz U.S. International (as the factory is officially known) bears little resemblance to those days. In addition to preparing for the new Maybach, the plant is gearing up to build the next-generation GLS. The plant is also in the early stages of a $1 billion upgrade as Mercedes prepares for the next revolution in the auto industry: electric vehicles. The Alabama operation will receive a battery plant (twice the size of the original auto factory) and will begin producing EQ series electric vehicles in the early 2020s. The plant is now the global production hub for the GLS, GLE and GLE Coupe. The factory, which has the capacity to build more than 300,000 vehicles each year, is the second-largest vehicle exporter in the U.S. About two-thirds of the cars produced in the plant are exported. The Maybach GLS, with its loungelike rear cabin, is primarily aimed at China, where customers prefer to be driven, rather than steer. China accounted for more than two-thirds of Maybach sedan sales last year. The decision to build a vehicle that will be sold in China also comes amid chronic trade tensions and tariff actions from the U.S. China briefly raised tariffs on U.S.-produced vehicles to 40 % last year in reaction to U.S. duties on Chinese products. But where it is manufactured comes down to cost, said Sam Fiorani, vice president with AutoForecast Solutions. A niche product does not have the volume to support production in 2 countries. “It doesn’t really makes sense to tool up in China for a couple thousand Maybach SUVs, when the Alabama plant is building more than 50,000 units of the GLS annually”, Fiorani said. Mercedes gave a hint of how a Maybach GLS might be styled when it shared its Vision Mercedes-Maybach Ultimate Luxury concept last year at the Beijing auto show. That concept combined design elements of an SUV with a sedan. The interior featured high-end materials, such as ebony, white nappa leather seats and rose-gold diamond stitching. The series-production Maybach SUV will be based on the next-generation GLS class, which will include Mercedes’ new infotainment system and a new interior and go on sale in the U.S. this year. A GLS 450 model is expected with an inline-6 engine, delivering 435-plus hp. Bringing the Maybach brand to the new GLS “is pretty opportune”, Exler said. “And I think it’s a really, really good strategy. A fair amount of the population is doing well, so luxury sales will stay very strong. There is room for this subbrand”. Maybach had been a 1930s-era brand. Daimler revived Maybach in the late 1990s as a standalone ultra-premium brand that shared parts with Mercedes-Benz cars. But met with sluggish sales, Daimler discontinued the Maybach brand in 2013, only to bring it back as a Mercedes-Benz subbrand a couple of years later. It is still early in the rarefied world of $300,000 SUVs. But the competition is already intense. At least half a dozen brands are now competing in the space. 2 years ago, Bentley launched the Bentayga, kick-starting the trend of ultraluxury SUVs. Last year, Lamborghini launched its $200,000 Urus, while Rolls-Royce rolled out a $325,000 Cullinan. By the end of 2019, Aston Martin will have begun deliveries of the DBX, while Ferrari will wait until 2022 to launch its recently announced Purosangue. Even Bugatti has indicated it might develop an SUV. Lamborghini, known for 2-door exotics such as the Countach, Diablo and Murcielago, expects the Urus to double the brand’s global sales to 7,000 vehicles in 2019. The Cullinan’s arrival in showrooms late last year quickly translated into an order bank that’s full through July and has pushed Rolls-Royce to capacity at its production plant in Goodwood, England. “I would like to have a little bit more supply”, Martin Fritsches, CEO of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Americas, told. “And I don’t get it because we are running on 100 % of production capacity, increasing the production capacity throughout the weeks and months, but still not being able to catch up to demand”. To boost production, Rolls-Royce added 200 employees to its plant last year, increasing its head count to 2,000. +++