cover story 8 F O C U S DR. KARL-THOMAS NEUMANN CEO OF ADAM OPEL AG Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann was appointed Chairman of the Board of Adam Opel AG and President, Europe effective March 1, 2013. Dr. Neumann is also GM Executive Vice President and member of the GM Executive Committee. Dr. Neumann was previously with Volkswagen AG, where he was CEO and Vice President of the Volkswagen Group China in Beijing from September 2010 to August 2012. Prior to that he held a number of management positions at Volkswagen, beginning in 1999 as Head of Research and Director of Electronics Strategy. From 2004 to 2009, Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann was a member of the Executive Board, Automotive Systems Division, at German supplier Continental AG. In addition, Dr. Neumann was chairman of the Executive Board of Continental AG from August 2008 to September 2009. In December 2009, he returned to Volkswagen AG and took over companywide responsibility for electric propulsion. Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann was born on April 1, 1961 in Twistringen in Lower Saxony. He studied electrical engineering at the Universities of Dortmund and Duisburg, where he was also awarded his doctorate. He began his professional career at the Fraunhofer Institute as a research engineer before moving to Motorola Semiconductor, where he worked as an engineer and strategy director responsible for the automotive industry. The father of three children is a passionate marathon runner. example, we are already using the carbon fiber composites for the Chevrolet Corvette in series-production. Not just individual parts like the fender, but the entire body structure including attached parts are made of carbon fiber. Opel is accessible to everyone and we are determined to offer our customers affordable technologies. That’s why we currently don’t see carbon fiber making it into Opel’s large-scale production. But in our OPC (OPEL PERFORMANCE CENTER) fleet, which is Opel’s range of sports car models, carbon fiber is already being used in series production. We also have experience with aluminum: the Opel Speedster, for instance, had an aluminum chassis tub. And we already used a cast magnesium part in the Vectra C in 2002 in its steering cross member. As you can see, we master a host of technologies, but at the end of the day, it’s all about what’s affordable for our customers – and not about what’s technically feasible. ‹F›: At the Geneva Motor Show you introduced the OnStar vehicle connectivity system, which, after its launch in the U.S., Canada, China and Mexico, will become available in Europe in 2015. Can you tell us more about this new system? ‹Dr. Neumann›: By introducing OnStar, we are taking a major leap forward towards realizing our vision of connectivity, which we presented last fall in the context of the Opel Monza Concept. With OnStar 4G/LTE, the car becomes a powerful WLAN hotspot with high-speed
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