Daimler Chairman Dieter Zetsche To Stand Down In 2019

Daimler Chairman Dieter Zetsche To Stand Down In 2019

Mercedes parent firm Daimler has announced that its current chairman, Dieter Zetsche, is to stand down from his position next year. Zetsche鈥檚 replacement will be Ola Kallenius, currently the Member of the Board for Group Research and Mercedes-Benz Cars Development. The Swede will become the first non-German to take the helm of Daimler - a multi-national corporation whose interests include not only Mercedes cars but also brands producing trucks, motorcycles and buses. Zetsche has suggested that Kallenius鈥檚 nationality may have played a part in his selection as his successor. 鈥淚n various positions at Daimler, Ola Kallenius has earned not only my respect, but also the recognition of his colleagues in very diverse areas. At the same time, he contributes a valuable international perspective,鈥?Zetsche said. Daimler announced at the same time that as part of the restructure, current AMG boss Tobias Moers is to start reporting in directly to the boss of Mercedes-Benz Cars. The performance sub-brand鈥檚 boss had been reporting into Kallenius in his role as head of Mercedes Cars Development, but he will continue to do so after the Swede鈥檚 promotion, instead of dealing with his successor, Markus Schaefer. The switch is designed to reflect the increasing importance of AMG and its widening integration into Merc鈥檚 product line-up.

UPDATE 5/20/2015, 1:00 p.m.: Unnamed sources have told Bloomberg that Takata changed its airbag propellant in 2008 to reduce the risk of overly forceful deployment and to address the moisture-related degradation of the propellant. UPDATE 5/27/2015, 10:00 a.m.: Next Tuesday, June 2, a panel from the U.S. House of Representatives will hold a hearing to follow up on the status of this ongoing situation. 鈥淲e have endured a year of Takata ruptures and recalls, and families are still at risk. No excuses. Michiganders, and all Americans, have a right to answers,鈥?committee chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said in a statement. The most recent Congressional hearing took place in December. UPDATE 5/28/2015, 10:00 a.m.: Honda has added 259,479 vehicles to its Japanese-market recall tally, according to Automotive News. Affected model years are from 2002 through 2008, which marks the first time that 2008 Hondas have been included in this huge airbag recall.

Honda soon will announce additional airbag recalls for the United States, which will be part of the massive recall expansion announced last week. UPDATE 5/28/2015, 1:25 p.m.: Chrysler and Honda have added hundreds of thousands of vehicles to their U.S.-market recall lists; this follows Takata鈥檚 announcement last week that 34 million total vehicles were subject to action. The Chrysler expansion details approximately 1.2 million of its vehicles that were part of last week鈥檚 announcement, many of which are from model years that previously hadn鈥檛 been flagged. UPDATE 5/28/2015, 5:00 p.m.: Ford has added more than 900,000 vehicles to its list of recalls for potentially defective airbags from Takata. The 2009-2014 Mustang and the 2006 Ranger are new additions to the list. The later-model Mustangs鈥攔ecalled for driver鈥檚-side airbags鈥攁re by far the newest cars to be included in this incredibly broad recall action. UPDATE 5/29/2015, 6:25 p.m.: General Motors now has vehicles on the ever-growing list below (besides the Toyota-built Pontiac Vibe): it is recalling heavy-duty examples of 2007 and 2008 Chevy Silverados and GMC Sierras. Also, Subaru has quadrupled the number of its vehicles subject to this airbag recall; that company鈥檚 additions are all 2004-2005 Imprezas.

UPDATE 6/2/2015, 10:30 a.m.: A Congressional hearing on this matter is scheduled for today at 2 p.m. We鈥檒l cover the event throughout the afternoon. Meanwhile, yesterday a Takata executive announced that the company proposes 鈥渢o replace all鈥?of the troublesome 鈥?鈥榖atwing-shaped鈥?propellant wafers鈥?installed in North America. We should know a lot more later today. UPDATE 6/2/2015, 3:35 p.m.: Highlights so far from today鈥檚 Congressional hearing come mostly from NHTSA administrator Mark Rosekind. UPDATE 6/2/2015, 7:05 p.m.: Now posted: our full story on today鈥檚 developments and how Takata plans to handle this situation moving forward. UPDATE 6/4/2015, 3:00 p.m.: Takata has informed Reuters that at least 10 percent of the 4 million replacement airbag inflators installed as part of these recalls will have to be replaced again. Also, former Takata president Stefan Stocker, who resigned that position in December, has now left his spot on the company鈥檚 board of directors.

Takata鈥檚 senior vice president of global quality assurance, Hiroshi Shimizu, has been named to the board, along with two other new appointments. UPDATE 6/10/2015, 10:00 a.m.: A lawsuit filed with the U.S. District Court in Lafayette, Louisiana, alleges that a 22-year-old woman was killed in early April when her 2005 Honda Civic鈥檚 driver鈥檚-side airbag 鈥渧iolently exploded and sent metal shards, shrapnel and/or other foreign material into the passenger compartment,鈥?Automotive News reports. Her car hit a telephone pole on April 5, two days before she received a recall notice for her car鈥檚 Takata-supplied airbags. She died on April 9. Her death, if it was indeed caused by the airbag, would become the seventh attributed to a failed Takata airbag. The other six fatalities have all occurred in Honda vehicles, and only one crash happened outside of the United States. UPDATE 6/11/2015, 10:25 a.m.: There are many millions of vehicles involved in these recalls, but it seems as though 34 million, a figure that Takata announced in mid-May, might be far too high.