Tobias Moers replaced as Aston Martin CEO
Former Ferrari boss takes the helm as firm seeks 'a new phase of growth'
Following months of speculation, Aston Martin has today announced that Tobias Moers will stand down from his role of CEO. After less than two years in charge, he will be replaced by Amedeo Felisa, a Non-Executive Director at the firm who previously spent eight years as CEO of Ferrari. Moers will apparently remain at Aston for three more months to ensure a smooth transition, but he will leave the company board with immediate effect. Additionally, Roberto Fedeli, another Ferrari veteran, will join Aston as its new Chief Technical Officer.
The official statement suggests the change occurred with the 'mutual agreement' of all parties, but it marks the end of an occasionally tumultuous period for the manufacturer - one characterised by the departure of a number of high-profile and often long-standing employees. Moers, formerly the boss of Mercedes-AMG and famously outspoken, was often unabashed in his assessment of his new employer. "The company was in trouble, which I expected," he told PH this time last year, "but it was worse than I thought, about as bad as it could be. I found a great team here, and that is good, but for sure we had to change a lot of things to save the company."
Lawrence Stroll, Aston's Executive Chairman and another man unafraid of candidness, moved to acknowledge Moers' achievements while at the firm. "Firstly, I would like to extend my thanks and appreciation for all that Tobias has achieved. He joined Aston Martin at a critical time for the Company and brought significant discipline to its operations. The benefit of these actions is clear in the improved operating performance of the Company and in our great new product launches." But the official announcement, which does not feature a statement from Moers, also stresses a pressing requirement for change.
"Now, there is a need for the business to enter a new phase of growth with a new leadership team and structure to ensure we deliver on our goals. Our new organisational framework will support the Company to its full potential, foster greater collaboration, a more cohesive way of working, both internally and externally, especially with our strategic partners, including Mercedes-Benz AG, and further accelerate technology transfer programmes with the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team."
Alongside better cohesion, the theme of additional growth is a reoccurring one, and doubtless it will be among Felisa's primary concerns as he steps into Moers' shoes. Aston's quarterly results suggest it is on track to sell 6,600 cars this year, but its share price remains lacklustre and the firm faces a challenge to successfully electrify its product range ahead of 2030. It is understood that a new organisational structure will be implemented following the new CEO's appointment, 'with a focus on broadening the technical team through the promotion of internal talent together with added expertise of strategic external hires, identified and set to be announced in the coming weeks.'
Particular weight is given to the appointment of Fedeli as CTO. He spent 26 years at Ferrari, and Aston pointedly credits him with the creation of the LaFerrari during his tenure. "He will help us deliver our future strategy, with a particular focus on technology advancements, and our in-house engineering capabilities, as we move towards electrification," commented Stroll. "Roberto is a proven innovator and team builder. He conceived some of the world's most desirable performance sports cars. His extensive experience of this sector, coupled with his leadership style, will contribute significantly to shape our exciting future product portfolio and reinvigorate our technical team."
Plainly Aston faces no fewer challenges than with Moers' at the helm, but Felisa himself - a leader praised not only for his experience of leading a major rival, but also his 'technical acumen and charisma' - has already expressed numerous aspirations for the firm's immediate future. "We have a clear objective to continue the transformation of Aston Martin into an ultra-luxury, high-performance brand and become a leader in our sector," he remarked. "We have a highly experienced and talented team throughout the organisation that together will enable us to achieve our goals. We have a tremendous opportunity to shape and enhance the uniqueness of Aston Martin's future products, and to further grow our appeal with new customers by harnessing the introduction of new technologies, electrification, connectivity and innovative materials."
I've never been fond of their product offering to date. I always buy Japanese because of reliability, and when you're spending 6 figures, there is no excuse for a car to get towed. Idiots can bring up whatever excuses they like.
They don't have the desirability of some older Aston's unfortunately. All this talk of tech is all well and good but they need to clearly differentiate themselves from the likes of Ferrari etc
They don't have the desirability of some older Aston's unfortunately. All this talk of tech is all well and good but they need to clearly differentiate themselves from the likes of Ferrari etc
But the future I feel will shake things up a lot. It's not electrification, it's speed limiting tech that I think will make things hard along with self driving. Suddenly a 'sporty' car makes little sense and as the limiters inevitably get rolled out further in the world, I worry for niche companies like Aston and Lambo and yes Ferrari. Of course people have always said 'what's the point when you have speed limits' but let me be frank - many do use it and enjoy it while those that don't know they could. So making high performance electric cars is all well and good, but when you override and your insurance company gets notified? Not so good!
I hope I am so wrong, but what is the point going to be of companies like Aston and Ferrari in ten years time?
(Sorry for being such a misery)
The SSO has a series of blog posts on Aston's continued difficulties; he obviously has a particular view (that it's all a pile of pants), but he does share some genuine insight into what's going on and why. Frankly Stroll's takeover seems a little iffy, the way he tells it, with the cross-funding of the two parts (the F1 team vs the road car company); and his lack of experience of owning or directing a car manufacturer.
It's also fascinating, in a depressing way, to see just how much misery the Valkyrie and AMG One have brought to their parent companies; it seems (again, from SSO) that the Valkyrie project is just burning through any free cash AM might have, and there still isn't really light at the end of the tunnel. Could that mark the point at which the hypercar tide turned, leaving Ferrari and the smaller producers like Koenigsegg as the only real hypercar producers?
Let's face it Aston have for a long time traded on very pretty cars that were inferior to the competition technically.
Now they don't even look pretty anymore.
I think of Porsche and I want to drive a GT4 and GT3 to see what they are like, I could think of 10 Ferrari's that I'd like to actually drive.
Aston? I'd like a DB5 to look at, but really does anyone get the desire to drive one like you do other sports car manufacturers?
A start would be making a car that dynamically people rave about.
Let's face it Aston have for a long time traded on very pretty cars that were inferior to the competition technically.
Now they don't even look pretty anymore.
I think of Porsche and I want to drive a GT4 and GT3 to see what they are like, I could think of 10 Ferrari's that I'd like to actually drive.
Aston? I'd like a DB5 to look at, but really does anyone get the desire to drive one like you do other sports car manufacturers?
A start would be making a car that dynamically people rave about.
This has been a problem for Aston for decades.
The 2005 AMV8 was billed as an entry level car. It was beautiful, and worked well. But they pitched it at the 911. It was a different sort of car, but telling people that, at that price point was not easy and they never got a grip of it.
In their need/desire for volume, they also failed utterly to protect residuals. This is something Ferrari have always been good at, and Porsche have learnt well too.
Then you had stupidity like the Cygnet. The myriad DB9 flavours. Etc. All just diverted attention from what they should have been doing.
I don't think any recent owner of the company has really decided what they want Aston to be, let alone try and align that to a history that could be milked.
What are they doing in F1, for example? And as interesting as the Valkyrie and Vanquish look, are they really Astons? And where the hell are they?
I don't think Aston have to be the last word in dynamic prowess. That's never, ever been the case with them and not what they're about. I used to think that maybe their biggest mistake was pitching the V8V at sub-90k. Maybe it needed to be more expensive. On all the subjective points, it probably would have stood that, albeit not selling in their target volumes (which it rarely, if ever, did anyway).
Don’t forget, in the mid-noughties CEO Bez hired a team of reliability gurus from Toyota to advise/scrutinise Aston’s quality control at Gaydon
Back to basics if you ask me
1. design a pretty car that handles.
2. make sure it has a reliable engine/gearbox, nice interior, a great stereo and cold air.
3. separate the 'tech' to ensure if one thing fails it won't leave the owner stranded
Lotus went an awfully long way to this end by simply plonking in a Toyota V6.
1) Ditch the stupid mid engined sports cars, you are NOT Ferrari and never will be
2) Ditch the stupid front engined ultra aggressive sports cars. You are not Porsche and never will be
3) Forget about "volume". There are only so many people in the world each year that want and can afford an Aston. Sell those people the car they need at a decent profit margin and that's it.
4) Concentrate on what you are good at, namely, big front engined, beautiful. luxurious GT cars (and the SUV thingy). Yes you need to hybridise them now, and eventually yes you do need to increase the electric assistance all the way to a full BEV, but just not right now
Everything else is just cash wasting window dresing that is an impossible dream and just bankrupts the company........
I've never been fond of their product offering to date. I always buy Japanese because of reliability, and when you're spending 6 figures, there is no excuse for a car to get towed. Idiots can bring up whatever excuses they like.
But the future I feel will shake things up a lot. It's not electrification, it's speed limiting tech that I think will make things hard along with self driving. Suddenly a 'sporty' car makes little sense and as the limiters inevitably get rolled out further in the world, I worry for niche companies like Aston and Lambo and yes Ferrari. Of course people have always said 'what's the point when you have speed limits' but let me be frank - many do use it and enjoy it while those that don't know they could. So making high performance electric cars is all well and good, but when you override and your insurance company gets notified? Not so good!
I hope I am so wrong, but what is the point going to be of companies like Aston and Ferrari in ten years time?
(Sorry for being such a misery)
1) Ditch the stupid mid engined sports cars, you are NOT Ferrari and never will be
2) Ditch the stupid front engined ultra aggressive sports cars. You are not Porsche and never will be
3) Forget about "volume". There are only so many people in the world each year that want and can afford an Aston. Sell those people the car they need at a decent profit margin and that's it.
4) Concentrate on what you are good at, namely, big front engined, beautiful. luxurious GT cars (and the SUV thingy). Yes you need to hybridise them now, and eventually yes you do need to increase the electric assistance all the way to a full BEV, but just not right now
Everything else is just cash wasting window dresing that is an impossible dream and just bankrupts the company........
Ditch the F1 s
t too. Though Stroll probably wants it to progress his son.Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff