The Man Who Made a Failing Carmaker Beat Mercedes
Carlos Tavares has consistently delivered strong profits at Peugeot, including a near miracle at Opel, even while illustrious peers have suffered.
Opel fruits.
Photographer: DANIEL ROLAND/AFPThe word that Peugeot SA boss Carlos Tavares comes back to time and again to describe the daunting challenges facing the auto industry is a deliberately frightening one. Carmakers face a “Darwinian” period, he reminded investors on Wednesday, implying that some of the French group’s less robust peers won’t survive the epochal shift from combustion to electric vehicles.
That battle for survival has just been made even more difficult by the spread of coronavirus, which threatens to shutter plants and sap demand for new vehicles across the industry. The shares of auto companies — even very profitable ones like Peugeot — have been hammered this week. But if anyone can steer a safe path across this vertiginous chasm, surely Tavares can.