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Friday, August 31, 2018

Mahindra seeks to block FCA from proceeding with Jeep patent complaint

FCA says the Roxor, shown, has Jeep characteristics such as a boxy body with flat vertical sides.

India's Mahindra and Mahindra is seeking an injunction against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to stop FCA from proceeding with a patent violation complaint aimed at stopping Mahindra from exporting a Jeep-like vehicle to the U.S.

Fiat Chrysler filed a trade complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission on Aug. 1 seeking to prevent Mahindra from importing the Roxor in to the U.S., an off-road vehicle that looks like the Jeep.

According to the complaint, certain design features of the Roxor infringed the intellectual property rights of FCA's Jeep design.

The complaint was "without merit," Mahindra said in a statement on Wednesday.

The company and its Mahindra Automotive North America unit have filed a public interest statement with the trade commission and have begun proceedings in a Michigan court to enforce a design agreement that it executed with Fiat in 2009.

"We are asking the court to block Fiat from participating in the ITC [International Trade Commission] claim -- an injunction -- because of the fact that they agreed in 2009 to never bring such claims if we use a grille that they approved. The Roxor uses that grille," Mahindra said.

"We are also arguing that Fiat is using the ITC case to harm our Roxor business by creating negative publicity, damaging our reputation and our stature in the marketplace," it said in the statement.

FCA has not claimed damages against Mahindra but has sought to permanently stop Mahindra from importing any components into the U.S. that infringe upon its intellectual property rights, Mahindra said.

FCA has said that Roxor imports threaten it with substantial injury because the SUVs are underselling Jeeps. Mahindra capitalizes on the cost advantages of manufacturing their products in India and then importing knocked-down kits to the U.S., where they are assembled in the Detroit area.

Mahinda said it rejects the notion that the Roxor is an imported low quality "knock-off" kit car. It said the SUV does not compete with FCA vehicles. The Roxor is manufactured and assembled in Auburn Hills in the first automaker plant to be built in Michigan in the last 25 years, the company said.

Mumbai-based Mahindra, which claims to be India’s largest SUV manufacturer, opened a North American headquarters in Auburn Hills last year.

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Thursday, August 30, 2018

Cox Automotive seeks tighter integration of brands

"It's easy for us to just go across the aisle to work on products, to work on solutions, but why don't we just get rid of the aisle?" Sandy Schwartz, president, Cox Automotive

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — If a dealership's parking lot has 10 visitor spots, on some days, Cox Automotive takes six of them.

That example may be an exaggeration, President Sandy Schwartz said, but the company wants to take up fewer spots in the future as it combines services under one cohesive Cox Automotive umbrella.

This month, amid news that Cox would launch a mobility division, the company also said it would combine its retail and media teams into a Retail Solutions Group. The reorganization will shift operations internally but the outside world will see little change, Schwartz said. The need to get products to market faster propelled the move.

Dealers already "look at us as one," Schwartz said. "It's easy for us to just go across the aisle to work on products, to work on solutions, but why don't we just get rid of the aisle?"

So far, Schwartz grades the company's integration of more than a dozen brands as a B-minus. The company must prioritize helping dealerships with combined solutions, he said. That has been part of Cox's strategy for five years but became especially important after the $4.5 billion acquisition of Dealertrack three years ago, Schwartz told Automotive News at VinWorx, a conference here centered on Cox's VinSolutions customer relationship management product.

"It's still a struggle for us because different people at dealerships make different decisions," Schwartz said. "It will be an ongoing way of us figuring out how do we work better?"

Bringing together companies with separate technology systems and office cultures, Schwartz said, has been among the most significant challenges of his career.

"I love the fact that we're bigger; it allows us to do a lot of things," he said. At the same time, he added, "I hate the fact that we're bigger because a lot of days it's hard to turn the ship, and that's my job to turn the ship."

First, Cox had to tackle knitting together legacy technology platforms, which Schwartz admits is taking a while, instead of designing the platforms from scratch to create a more effortless workflow.

"It's been tough because the seamless integration is harder to get to than I thought it would be," Schwartz said. "But we've made great strides."

The core values of each Cox brand have always aligned, Schwartz said. But the company cultures have varied, so Schwartz and his team have been tasked with building a culture that's consistent under the Cox name but also true to the original brand.

"It's really important to respect culture and to respect what's important to [employees]. We've tried to bring these companies together the right way and still respect and honor the past and the culture," he said.

Last year, Cox laid off 950 employees — about 3 percent of its full-time staff — and 225 associates accepted early-retirement packages. After a rapid stream of acquisitions, the company had taken inventory of its assets and determined how they best connected. Because of that, Cox needed to rationalize its work force, Schwartz said last week.

Schwartz expects Cox to be in a constant state of change, with goals to streamline the business and bring products and services to the market faster. He envisions the work force evolving but said he can't predict how employee head count will fluctuate.

As for when Cox will boost its integration grade, Schwartz said: "I'm hoping a year from now, we're going to be much, much better. I don't know if it's going to be an A or if it's going to be a B-plus, but we're going to keep working at it."

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Ford Motor Co seeks tax breaks and incentives for train depot renovation

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. expects to spend $740 million turning an abandoned train depot and several neighboring properties here into an urban technology campus, but it's seeking tax breaks and other incentives to cover at least a third of that cost, the automaker said last week.

It's the first public disclosure of how much Ford will invest in the 1.2-million-square-foot project spread across five buildings in Detroit's Corktown neighborhood, including the rundown Michigan Central Station, which is to anchor the campus dedicated to work on autonomous and electric vehicle technology.

Ford is asking for local, state and federal tax incentives totaling about $250 million over 34 years, a company representative said.

Ford said its investment in the campus, including buying the train station and developing 45 acres of vacant land, will not require money beyond what it had earmarked in 2016 to overhaul its product campus and headquarters in nearby Dearborn. The estimated cost "takes into account the requirements of restoring a historic building such as the train station," a 13-story landmark that closed in 1988, Ford said in a statement.

Richard Bardelli, program manager for Ford Land Development Co., the automaker's real-estate arm, said during a community meeting last week that the project will involve an overhaul of the 104-year-old train depot and a former Detroit Public Schools book depository across the street. In addition, a dilapidated former brass factory several blocks away will be demolished to make way for a 290,000-square-foot, four-story building.

Two parking decks are expected to be constructed as part of the project, which is anticipated to be complete within four years.

The depot is expected to be turned into about 313,000 square feet of office space, about 42,000 square feet of residential space spread across 40 or so units, 43,000 square feet of commercial space and 60,000 square feet of event space.

The former brass factory is to be leveled starting this year and replaced by a building with offices and labs as well as commercial space. Ford moved about 200 employees into a renovated former hosiery factory next door in late 2017.

Major construction work on the train station is expected to begin early next year, with a year being spent stabilizing the building and another two years spent restoring it. Major work on the book depository is expected to begin early next year.

By the time Ford completes the project, it's slated to employ about 2,500 Ford workers and another 2,500 workers from partner companies.

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