Car Torque: New Holden chairman to oversee difficult transition

Holden Australia has appointed Mark Bernhard as its new chairman and managing director. Mr Bernhard replaces Gerry Dorizas, who resigned suddenly in October last year.

Mr Bernhard is currently vice president and chief financial officer (CFO) of Shanghai General Motors. He began his automotive career with Holden in 1986 and is a former CFO of GM Holden.

Mr Bernhard will lead the company through a difficult period, as it prepares to shut down local manufacturing in 2017 and makes the transition to an importing and distribution company. The announcement of Mr Bernhard’s move back to Holden went hand-in-hand with confirmation that Holden will launch 24 new vehicles over the next five years. One-third of future Holden product will be sourced from Europe: the first Holden-badged Insignia VXR sedans started rolling off the production line in Russelsheim, Germany this month, ahead of a mid-year launch in Australia and New Zealand.

The company has also reiterated that its Lang Lang Proving Ground will remain open to tune imported vehicles to local conditions and that its Global Design Centre will continue to contribute to GM operations around the world.

Mr Bernhard will be the sixth chairman of Holden in the past seven years – or seventh if you count interim managing director, CFO Jeff Rolfs: following the departure of Mr Dorizas (who left the company completely) last year, Mr Rolfs headed up the company in a caretaker role.

Volvo cloud keeps an eye on weather
Volvo is working with The Swedish Transport Administration and Norwegian Public Roads Administration to develop a cloud-based system for warning road users about adverse weather conditions, such as icy roads.

The existing test fleet for the project has been expended from 50 to 1000 cars, with the goal of making the system available to the public in 2016.

The key technology is a slippery road alert, which is transmitted to cars via a separate server. But the system also includes car-to-car communication: if a car on the road has its hazard flashers on, vehicles approaching from behind can be warned in advance.

Borgward is back
A Chinese truck company is planning to bring the German Borgward brand back. According to a report in Automotive News, Beiqi Foton acquired the rights to Borgward last year and plans to announce a comeback at the Geneva Motor Show in March.

Christian Borgward, the grandson of company founder Carl Borgward, will be involved in the project, which aims to launch a range of passenger vehicles from 2016.

Borgward manufactured cars in Bremen, Germany, between 1919-61. It was known for technical innovation and produced limited numbers of vehicles at premium prices, but later models also had reliability problems.