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It’s the middle of the week and we’re excited for another amazing day in the auto industry. Today we’re talking about how Stellantis replaced their North American president, Hyundai’s new steering rig and Porsche’s awkward typo.
- Stellantis announces a major shift in its North American operations, replacing COO Mark Stewart with Carlos Zarlenga, the current president of its Mexico unit.
- Zarlenga, with a decade of global automotive experience, including a role as president of General Motors South America, is set to take over on Feb. 1.
- Stewart's departure follows a challenging year for Stellantis in the U.S. market, marked by a 1.2 percent decline in sales and a costly labor agreement with the UAW.
- The change comes as Stellantis gears up to launch its first electric vehicles in North America, aiming to revitalize its brands like Dodge, Jeep, and Ram in the competitive EV space.
- Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis, praised Zarlenga's leadership skills: "Carlos Zarlenga is the best leader... to drive the change in our business model towards electrification in the region."
- From the ASOTU Daily Pushback Email: Most great features have limitless applications; Hyundai's Ioniq 5 has a new steering feature that seems to have a very limited number of applications.
- The e-Corner System turns the wheels of the EV sideways, allowing it to spin in place, perform a semi-drift maneuver, parallel park, or, maybe most importantly, escape a tight parallel park situation.
- The Steer-by-Wire system means each of the vehicle's four wheels is independently controlled by electronic motors, which is pretty much restricted to EV-only use.
- Hyundai Mobis says it is adding more cameras, sensors, and projectors in cars with the feature for safety needs.
- They say the system is not designed for high-speed driving and has only been tested up to 50 MPH.
- The feature is expected to start rolling out in 2026.
- A Porsche Club of America member in Houston spotted a humorous typo in the Porsche 911's driver display, where "brake pads" are misspelled as "break pads."
- The error was discovered following a request for brake pad recommendations on a Texas PCA Facebook group, after the owner participated in a High Performance Driver Education course.
- The dashboard warning reads, "BRAKE WEAR: Brake pads worn....Change break pads...Driving permitted," ironically spelling 'brake' correctly in other instances.
- This minor gaffe on a high-end sports car, priced at around $115,000, highlights the importance of attention to detail, even in premium products.
- It's unknown if this typo is exclusive to the 911 or affects other Porsche models, but it's likely a simple software update could rectify the error.
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