VW's Jacoby Already Happened to Think Geely and Volvo -- Maybe His New Bosses? -- Have the Right Idea
Stefan Jacoby, president and CEO of Volkswagen Group of America, has already given some thought to the Volvo brand and the Chinese auto industry, judging by some off-the-cuff remarks he made in New York recently. Those remarks didn't make much of an impression on me at the time, but they're more relevant now, because a lot of unconfirmed but published reports have Jacoby leaving VW to run Volvo Cars.
(Note that Volvo Cars is a different company from Volvo AB (VOLVY.PK), the heavy truck maker.)
Jacoby has been VW's top guy in the U.S. market almost exactly two years, since July 5, 2007. VW confirms it is "negotiating" with Jacoby, but won't say what for. In the meantime, the U.S. subsidiary named its CFO as "interim-CEO," which sure makes it sound like Jacoby is gone.
Meanwhile, China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group announced in March that Geely is buying Volvo Cars for $1.8 billion. Jacoby has experience in Asia running various VW operations. He has experience in the key U.S. market. And he has experience with premium brands including U.S. responsibility for Audi. All of those factors make him at least a logical candidate for the Volvo job.
"Volvo is a very interesting brand," Jacoby said, shortly before a speech he gave on June 15, to introduce the all-new 2011 Volkswagen Jetta. He was vocal on other topics, but opted to stay out of a discussion whether Ford had done a good job while it owned Volvo.
Jacoby said Chinese automakers have three options to enter mature automotive markets like North America and Western Europe:
- "They can come with their own, entry-level cars under their own brands," he said. The gist of the discussion was that would take a long time, however, and the Chinese brands would have to overcome questions about product quality.
- "They can buy other brands - mainly this seems the best approach," Jacoby said. Incidentally, that's what Geely is doing with Volvo Cars.
- "They can come with new technologies like BYD," he said. BYD is a Chinese manufacturer of laptop batteries that said it will introduce an electric vehicle for the U.S. market this year. By the way, that effort looks like it's running late.
It will be interesting if Jacoby ends up with a role in leading the charge.
Photo: Jim Motavalli, BNET Auto