From Apprentice to Aston Martin CEO - The Story of Andy Palmer
Vložit
- čas přidán 10. 12. 2022
- In today's video, I talk with former Nissan COO, Aston Martin CEO and passionate engineer Dr Andy Palmer about his inspiration, and the challenges yet to come.
Thanks to Antony Marcano for help with filming
#AstonMartin #Nissan #Diaryofaceo
CarVertical: The History Checking Service
Use This Link or Code "JAYEMM" for a 20% Discount!
www.carvertica...
Want to see your car on the channel? Email me on talk@jayemm.com
Not had enough? Check out JAYEMM & FRIENDS! My new channel
/ jayemmandfriends
**********OUR CHANNEL PARTNERS**********
Dodo Juice - Award Winning Detailing Products
Get 10% off Dodo Juice's British Made Detailing Products with code: JAYEMM10
Shop at www.dodojuice.net
Charles & Dean - The Funding Specialists
www.charlesand...
CRG Diagnostics
The experts in ADAS recalibration
collisionrepai...
FIRE SAFETY STICK
The World's Lightest and Most Compact Fire Extinguisher
firesafetystic...
***********************************************************************************
Want More JayEmm? Become a channel member for access to exclusive content!
/ @jayemmoncars - Auta a dopravní prostředky
I’m very passionate about these long format interviews with significant people from the automotive industry. They provide a unique insight into the individual which cannot be found anywhere elsewhere today. Please keep producing them. Also they have the best quality production values of an interview I have seen in a long time. Terrestrial tv eat your heart out.
I worked at Aston during july 2018 to july 2020. I was one who left under my own steam rather than redundancy. Initially it was great, but it became evident to me that palmer and his team were trying to cook the books. There was a lot of "mortgaging" cars at the Xmas 2018 period which was an attempt to make the books look stronger than they were. Flooding of wholesale and the subsequent failure of being able to sell those cars, meant they were all sold massively at below what they should have been.
I was also one of the "mugs" who bought £ks of shares when they floated as I believed in the brand. I "sincerely" hope palmer enjoys the millions he earned of floatation and trying to drive this great British brand into the ground.
It was certainly a fruitful exercise for him. It certainly wasn't for the 20 to 30% who lost their jobs due to his and his teams mismanagement of the business.
Ultimately, I'm not bitter (despite the above) as it gave me the push I needed to move into a senior management position and I learned a lot over those two years. In all likelihood, I would have moved out the business due to other reasons anyway. But either way, this guy is absolutely not any type of automotive messiah. He's not better than the phoenix lot that ran MG rover into the ground.
I know exactly what you mean.
I worked for a group of companies where exactly the same was done but 20 years earlier before anyone else was doing it. So when I saw what was going on at Rover and Aston thought nothing of it except at Rover, they really took it to extremes and got away with it.
Hard to avoid the viking funeral while aboard a burning ship eh?
@ph1lthyvision somewhat....speaking to my ex boss at the time, he said I wouldn't have gone as he saw me as the future of man eng but understood why. I'm sole income earner in my house, so need to ensure I have money coming in.
I don't disagree with the comment but the fundamentals at AM were flawed long before Andy arrived and only made worse by the involvement of the VC team. The items you list are classic financial engineering tricks. As CEO he does ultimately carry the can but think he is an exceptional car man who was badly let down by sharks.
As a lifelong Aston fan, owner and historian, I think it would likely help to not build multiple models simultaneously that all look the same. They seem to finally be getting away from that now. The era of the Vantage, DB9, Vanquish, DBS was utter insanity. The average person could not tell one from the other. HORRIBLE decision making. A model lineup should be STREAMLINED, as it was when my Lagondas and X-Pack Vantage were built
I’ve read about this guy for years and for some reason never taken to him as a person, this video hasn’t changed that. However, I’ve huge respect for the career journey he describes here and his achievements. Thanks Jay.
He's a pretentious incompetent, that's why. There's a fundamental lack of sincerity or candour about the man, failing to acknowledge the devastation he caused and left in his wake.
@@richardharrold9736 most of the Nissan stuff he was involved in mentioned here never excited me whatsoever. So he didn’t do brilliantly compared to other car companies at the same time.
@@GregsMowing yeah, like the Qashqai... OK, it was a smash hit commercially, but it's a hateful piece of shit, a bland blob to look at and to drive, and it's one of the worst offenders in terms of real world emissions... the Juke likewise except it's actively hideous... at least the Infinitis were quite pretty and decent to drive, shame they never sold well outside Japan and America.
Wonderful! Significantly, I like the editing to remove the questions, it creates a huge flow of information without the clutter.
I hope other interviewers learn from this. Well done James .
Andy is an incredibly intelligent man, let down by his business acumen and short sightedness in the luxury/supercar brand. I wrote to Andy after seeing the IPO and its fundamental flaws. I never did get a reply. The rest as they say is history.
To let industry leaders and car enthusiasts simply share their stories is JayEmm’s best work. Bravo 🎉
The Juke and Qashqui are very innovative as the most responsible for the ongoing demise of the personal motor car
I liked the format, where it’s about him and his voice. You didn’t insert yourself like most people do. Very professional.
Excellent interview which filled in the gaps around my experience of working with and for Andy. In the early 90s I provided the IT management to deliver his vision of a pragmatic design and development business. In the early 00s I led the Trial Engineering department building prototypes like Primera and Micra which were powered by Renault diesel engines and in the early 10s I was back in IT delivering services across Europe for Nissan in partnership with our equivalent department in Renault at about the time that Andy became responsible for all IT in Nissan worldwide. We were, for a short time, peers when we joined the company in 1991 but he soon accelerated way ahead of me. Your interview in many ways helped me to understand why. Thank you.
22:04 "The Infinity Q50 with electric steering system". That rang a bell. I was working in Japan (I'm European but have lived 10+ years in Japan) at the semiconductor company that provided the chips which enabled this. Infinity was ahead of brands like Mercedes and BMW on this. It is, in simplified terms, a steer by wire system in which there is no mechanical connection from the steering wheel to the front wheels. That was quite the innovation at the time, and simplified the design for left-hand and right-hand drive cars.
Thank you Jay for providing the most interesting and informative video. A quality product.
Hi Jay, well, you've really hit the bull's eye with all 3 darts on this superb video. It's probably the most interesting 39 mins I've spent in quite a while.
Following Doctor Andy's life path and career shows - as if we didn't already know - that it is still possible for a young bloke with a passion for cars and machinery in general, to make it big.
Easy to listen to, fascinating to grasp the machinations of the Renault Nissan group, interesting to hear the achievements of his time with Aston Martin (even tho' I detested my mate's DB9 !).
Comes across as a thoughtful calm soul, but still interested in making a contribution to the world, I wish Andy all the very best in his future endeavours.
You done good Jay ...
Excellent video and what a fascinating chap, thank you Jay 👏👏👏
I actually met Andy once. Baring in mind his position at AM and the fact I’m a nobody he was very polite and engaging.
Great interview but for me a person difficult to warm to.
Loved the video, I can’t get enough of the sense of passion in Dr Andy Palmer’s words 🔥💯 Would love a video on his Aston Martin parcour
Love Andy's passion.... Great video. Thanks.
Hi James, I'm really enjoying these videos. I think within 2 years I'm the same age as Dr A.P. and had a similar early apprenticeship, I started work on strike! What an interesting and talented guy.
Lost all respect for him when he sold his soul and screwed investors over a very flawed IPO which was mainly smoke and mirrors. I’m an AM owner and invested, but it’s not me I feel
sorry for as it’s just a gamble.
Feel most sorry for the shop floor AML employees who were persuaded to invest at that time and shares have now lost > 95% of IPO price. These guys lost money big time whilst Palmer was showing off basking in the limelight’s of industry awards. Hope he gets what he deserves in time and has plenty of sleepless nights in the meantime 😤
Ive spoken with a number of industry people and the general consensus is that the IPO was beyond Andy's control. It was certainly a disaster but not I think of his making
Loving this andy is so experienced & talented looking forward to what happens at pod point
Liked that interview! He's got a great story to tell. A very familiar engineer-ish way about him. The one thing that threw me off, was driving that car, blasting The Stranglers! Awesome start to a day, that'd be.
So, he's got a big brain, uses it, driven to make a change for the better (except for that NYC taxi), and has some excellent cassette tapes in his car. Rare and Inspiring!
What a career, and how very focused Andy has been on following his dream. I respect that. A career is but one facet of life though. It must take great sacrifice to apply such focus.
Good interview. Nicely done.
I think I’d like to hear the questions being asked.
I'm always wary of people who aspire to be CEOs. Almost as much as 'entrepreneurs' or 'philanthropists'.
You don't get to be CEO without ambition. And even do I don't approve of Palmer's decisions at Aston Martin, I have to give it to him that he personally acquired a 1980 Vantage. Kudos! Remember when Danny Bahar was CEO at Lotus? Lotus built and gifted a special Esprit V8 to him that he never even drove and sold off subsequently .... so much for brand loyalty.
Or MPs
IMHO, Palmer’s biggest mistakes were 1) rely on Marek Reichmann as Head of Design. In retrospect, the Vantage and DB11 can be considered design failures not on par with the beautiful previous generation of Astons. 2) The integration of AMG engines. No matter how you spin it, with that Astons lost their heart and soul. But of course, it ain’t easy being an Aston CEO!
Also rushing the latest Vantage was equally a mistake, as was using outdated Merc infotainment systems.
Haha, what is it with the small group of Brits, who are famously absolutely lacking in any sense of style&design, always chiming in with their weird opinion that this current Aston lineup would be ugly?! No-one outside of a few British shed-living weirdos think the new Astons are ugly. They're not only far more beautiful in their general design, but they're also so clearly many times higher level of design too. Infinitely more sophisticated, more detailed. Totally different level of skill, design and production technology.
The second point about AMG engines is nonsensical too, as Vantage and DB11/DBS lineups are both available with Aston's own engines so there is that choice, and the AMG engines are excellent in their category as well as make so much sense financially. Basically it was either AMG engines or then from some lower-rent brand like Toyota. There was absolutely no choice of having a second engine from Aston themselves.
@@pistonburner6448 the new Astons are indisputably ugly, to the extent AM Works were forced to issue a revised nose for the Vantage. Considering how utterly beautiful Ian Callum's DB9 was and still is, and the great work his brother Moray has done at Mazda, there's no reason why a Brit can't do a good job of producing stylish cars... See also Peter Stevens' extensive back catalogue... Reichmann done fucked up. Also, using the atmospheric 5.0 Lexus V8 would have been much more appropriate than the AMG biturbo unit...
The DB11 is very ugly, looks terribly dated already. I saw a DB9 in the flesh the other day, absolutely beautiful & stylish car.
@@richardharrold9736 You should've begun your message with a disclaimer that you know nothing about the automotive industry.
First of all your claim that "new Astons are indisputably ugly" is false. Plain and simple.
Them making a revision on the nose does not support that claim either.
DB9 is an old-fashioned, simplistic, crude design. And now looks worse than old Mondeos and Mazdas.
You also make no sense with your claim of "there's no reason why a Brit can't do a good job of producing stylish cars"... are you seriously having that much trouble following the conversation that you have no clue what you're even responding to? It would be polite to at least read what is written and reply honestly instead of trying to gaslight by using straw men. Brits can design beautiful cars...when they're professionals and they're selected from the rabble who can't. But in general Brits as a whole have horrible sense of style and a totally skewed sense of aesthetic in general. You can see it clearly from your cityscapes, from all of the aesthetic of your society.
If you're going to try to bring up some new subjects like Peter Stevens' back catalogue then you're supposed to bring up what you mean about it. Why is the internet so used to just spouting out short innuendo, and not having honest, proper conversations like a man? You're even turning this into some angry reaction about your hurt feelings about British sensibility on design in general... Try to leave out your emotions, try to not be so lazy, and have a proper conversation please! That would be so much more productive, I have no interest in having an internet troll-fight.
And lastly, what really shows my first point: you're not even discussing this subject seriously. Because your nonsense about Lexus' 5.0 NA V8 makes no sense. How could Aston Martin suddenly change all of their architecture to Toyota's, and how is that not even worse for the infotainment situation? How could Aston sell their cars with an engine in a far lower performance category for the same money? And with the name Toyota attached to them instead of AMG? Totally different thing. Then please let me know if the Lexus V8 is even going to fulfil the emissions norms? So can Aston rely on the Lexus engine or have to put MASSIVE cost into finding a new engine supplier (or do you think Toyota will have some new engine to supply) when the emissions regs tighten? And then even more issues: then they'd have to use Toyota's gearbox...which AFAIK isn't even available as transaxle so what are they going to do, be even slower AND have a horrible weight distribution?
The problem AM have is their current range of Sports car have not sold as well as the company anticipated. The next cars need to be hybrid or electric these lies a big challenge for AM. They can only survive if a motor manufacturer like Mercedes or V W buy them outright
Cool how it was an Aston that became his dream when he first learnt to drive, same happened to me with the DB9 ☺️
His full story on Aston-Martin would be a true pleasure!
*More interviews Jay!! You're good at this.* 👍
Fascinating, thank you.
Jay gets all the very best interviews!
What a brilliant video.
As always!
But hey, who else gets these kinds of interviews?!
Fantastic James, this sets a whole new standard for your productions, I would really like to hear Andy’s views and opinions of his times at Aston Martin if he is willing to share I am sure it will be very painful. People need to remember with all the current Alpha management team and lots of funding they have achieved absolutely nothing, all their current product line, driving their current revenue streams were built by Andy. They have also lost a lot of their top engineering team. Hearing Andy’s underlying passion is all the right stuff, so many corporates and C suite teams today are built with accountants and lawyers and have little or zero understanding of what makes the business they command successful. They are however masters of politics. The world needs people like Andy.
Thanks yet again James. Your production values and the format are outstanding. Cheers.
Fantastic video, such an interesting bloke. I do like the way you let him do all of the talking.
Really enjoy these videos your doing!
The book he mentions at 2815, David Twohig Inside the Machine is excellent. I recommend it
People keep introducing him as the ceo of aston martin while I always know him as the nissan guy. Even met him at lemans while he was with nissan during the garage 56 entries. It's no surprise Qashqai (stupid name aside) was his proudest achievement. If I had a hand in the one of the most revolutionary automotive products of the past 30 years, I would be too.
Another great 'interview', keep them coming!
I love these interviews. They’re starting to feel like a Christmas tradition 😊
Andy sure does look scrumptious this wintery Sunday morning.
Another tremendous one James. Thanks.
Great interview JayEmm, really interesting!
Thoroughly enjoyed this presentation however, it is sad to me that someone passionate and intelligent about "cars" is so easily swayed into pushing the modern Aristocrats environmental propaganda. "Saving the planet" wow drank the cool aid, but it does sell well at the high society cocktail parties. Do not think I dont appreciate these, all your work James as been top notch and greatly appreciated, I simply have to stick with the truth. Thanks.
To be fair to Andy, as you will have heard in the interview he considers the LEAF a "failure" because it was not truly Carbon Neutral - this is something he is still trying to achieve with his current projects
wauw great interview, what passion for the industrie. great man
insightful - thank you for sharing - what a smart career path
These interviews are great. Keep them coming!
Fabulousi interview. His passion really comes across.
Top man is Dr Andy Palmer. I loved the video and really liked Andy. He was very genuine and down to earth. But the best bit is that Mr Aston plays The Stranglers in his 1980 Aston Martin Vantage. Shame the car is not Golden Brown.
Great vid & interview JayEmm.
these vids are quality(TV QUALITY) . Well done and THANK YOU
What a thoroughly likeable, intelligent and interesting man, and what an amazing journey he’s been on. Thanks so much for filming and sharing this. I’d love to hear about the transition at Aston. Cheers and Merry Christmas!
Brilliant video!
Excellent piece - Jaguar (LR) should hire Andy to work with Gerry McGovern to transform engineering quality of the worlds most desirable cars.
Fantastic interview James!!! Brilliant 👍🏼👍🏼
Super interview.
Andy Palmer is one of those guys that stabs colleagues in the back for his personal gain/promotion.
He even comes across like that in this interview.
Yep. Everyone at AM thinks he's a weapons-grade bellend.
I worked for Andy for several years in the mid 90's to mid 00's and he was a very very good manager. His standards were high and he pushed many of us to achieve more than we thought we were capable of, but he also pushed himself hard too. He gave us credit and took a fair share for himself too - after all he had an exceptionally strong desire to reach the very top. I've no problem with that. He created the environment for that success and that's a key element of 'management'.
Quality just quality
Fantastic!
Im sure he put his heart and soul into Aston Martin
Great interview! An experienced and talented engineer.
Excellent
Absolutely fascinating.
Would love to get drunk with this guy ! 😎
great video, but Andy needs another extension cord for the trickle charger :D
I wish he could comment about the Cygnet - the Toyota / Aston Martin progeny - how did this come to be?
Before his time. Dr Bez led Aston Martin when it partnered with Toyota to rebadge the iQ as the Cygnet so as to exploit a loophole in EU legislation to reduce average emissions in AM's fleet of cars.
26.32 - Can I ask if that looped road is real or CGI footage?
A very interesting, down to earth geaser.
Yes Aston's CEO has changed (twice) but in my head Dr. Palmer is still the CEO of Aston Martin. Tobias Moers to me felt a little too distant as Aston's CEO, not quite like his stint in AMG. Dunno about Amedeo Felisa.
You are right. I think that is the same for a lot of us!
different and fantastic Great video
Great show.
Good morning James!
Well, I got to the part that he waxed lyrical about a front wheel drive Rover as being a 'pinnacle' of some sort and I fail to believe that he's a real, actual, bonafide 'car guy'. I can understand some people being forced to settle with a FWD car, some are even quite fun, but to go out of his way to extol it as some kind of pinnacle? Impossible that's he's a 100% true gearhead.
Might be useful to make those claims of being one though, in his quest for a high position and salary.
Very interesting interview overall! I'd love to hear even more about his work at Renault-Nissan, with Ghosn, and also his time at Aston Martin. So many interesting subjects he could tell us about!
Yeah Andy, trying to have a go at yourself to make your other self-defence comments look less ridiculous is such a great idea... look, a Rover 825/827 is a perfectly fine car, it was one of the best in its sector at the time, and for a 22-year-old it would have been quite something...
Very interesting.
Instead of 'evolving' Aston Martins like Porsche and Bentley, it was under Andy Palmer that he threw out the designs, at the time being the ONLY elegant sportscar. Under Palmer, the brand was supposed to 'evolve' the line to a younger buyer. Instead of improving the cars they got worse - convoluted messy interiors and that 'catfish' face on the Vantage - what the? Then he forced the dealers to stock far more cars than they could possibly sell, essentially only a few weeks before the dealer's had to purchase them. This way they could inflate for the public offering the 'sales' numbers which were not sales to actual customers but to forced dealers. Then they changed the warranties so that it made it difficult for dealers to get reimbursed - it's a wonder the dealer network did not implode. Then he made a deal with Mercedes to get their 'technology', but the catch there was they would not get the latest - ever! They can ONLY get tech three years old, so Aston would not compete with Mercedes. Yep, that's what the brilliant engineer Andy Palmer did! Then the engine - now we get to buy a Mercedes, not an Aston, but those Mercedes have better performance. WTF! During this mess, Ferrari saw an opportunity to put a knife in the back of AM and designed a better Aston Martin they call the Roma - with SEVEN years of services included. Aston's promises under Andy Palmer have failed to materialize on so many levels it's a joke. As an Aston owner for four decades and for the last 15 years being the only one that has organized Aston Martin owners in the Minnesota region, with Aston Martin Corporate seemingly not giving a rip, it pains me to no end to see how this single CEO brought Aston Martin to the brink.
So tell me again why the company is failing
Because Palmer was a clueless incompetent when it came to sorting out finances, and he screwed over a lot of his own workforce - who really should be compensated by the company's owners and Palmer himself for their losses.
How can it not with such low production figures. It's probably impossible for any company to be profitable only operating in that product segment... (Even Ferrari has always been linked to Fiat Group)
@@pistonburner6448 the production figures are dismal because there are so few orders for them, as no bugger wants the damn things!
@@richardharrold9736 Is that why Fiat merged with Chrysler, and then that behemoth merged with PSA forming Stellantis? Is that why Marchionne said Fiat's 1,300,000 annual sales is nowhere near enough to survive in the automotive industry and they needed those mergers to get to at least the 6 million+ category?
Do you think Aston Martin will go from the current ~4000 per year to over 6 million cars per year if they put in Toyota V8s with far less performance and can't fulfil emissions regulations, if Aston pays hundreds of millions for a total reworking of the whole car's architecture to regress back to a front gearbox instead of the better transaxle, and they revert to more crude 2003 designs?
@@pistonburner6448 Stellantis is a merger of many companies, ALL of which have been failing for a decade or more. If they'd had good enough products they'd have survived... and if Marchionne hadn't been a chain-smoker he'd still be alive today. The Toyota UR engine is a vastly superior unit to the AMG and has a factory supercharger option if boost is needed, and it does meet emissions... and transaxles suck, the shifts are always vague, but remember how they took a Ford V6 (front gearbox, usually transverse) and made a V12 out of it and then went transaxle with that? Or how they took the front gearbox wet sump Jag V8 and made their own dry sump transaxle version? None of which cost hundreds of millions.
Aston Martin V8 Vantage + The Stranglers...
This man is the shizzle...
Awesome...
The fact that "Carlos Ghosn took to Andy Palmer" is enough to tell you what kind of person Andy Palmer must be.
Carlos Ghosn was a hardcore top manager and one should not make the mistake to underestimate him. Egocentric and a bit greedy? Probably yes. But he transformed mediocre companies such as Renault and Nissan into a global powerhouse. In the end, he got betrayed by the Japanese Nissan management ... read the story, it's fascinating.
What's that supposed to mean? Can you actually back up that hot take with something?
@@pistonburner6448 one narcissistic criminal fraudster liking another greedy ambitious power-hungry unprincipled wanker...
@@NewtonInDaHouseYo Renault is owned 15% by the French Government and the French government have been milked by Renault over the years in the same way as FIAT etc. Renault and Nissan (Datsun) and Mitsubishi were both global companies before Carlos Ghosan came along. " Carlos Ghosan was a "bit greedy" is a bit of an understatement.
@@johntheaccountant5594 Are you saying that Ghosn used Renault to milk the French government? Any facts to back that up? Do you have some numbers? And how exactly did they get money from the French government?
How did Renault milk Fiat...or did you mean to write something else, like Fiat milking someone else?
In what condition were Renault and Nissan before Ghosn was hired?
So how exactly is Ghosn (not Ghosan) greedy, as you have not explained that bit at all so far?
T.Y🙏🙏
A divisive character it seems.
Can someone help me out, who is this guy?
Heard Aston was gonna buy Lotus and have them make the mid engines back when Andy took over and poached lotus engineers
Andy Palmer specialised in transmissions.
Andy Palmer was responsible for one of the worst CVT's in the motor industry then.
Nissan probably has the worst, especially regarding reliability of the CVT on the world market.
CVT are very complex transmissions and OEM rarely got it right. Event AUDI ran into massive problems with their CVT. About 10 years ago I had the opportunity to visit the main Nissan (JATCO) transmission plant in Japan. From a manufacturing point of view, it was absolutely first class and very impressive.
@@NewtonInDaHouseYo While you were in Japan, maybe you should have visited AISIN (Toyota) that might have impressed you even more.
@@johntheaccountant5594 How so?
@@johntheaccountant5594 Actually I have (Toyota Aichi plant). And indeed it was most impressive!
Andy Palmer wasn’t responsible for the Design of the Nissan CVT, it was designed in Japan and manufactured by an affiliated Nissan supplier Jatco, unfortunately these transmissions suffered a lot of problems especially in the US market, Nissan extended the warranty to cover relatively early failures.
So it’s partly his fault everyone makes these horrible crossovers 😢.
Hope you get Ron Dennis on for an interview.
So good
What a disaster AML was/is. And very much under his watch I am afraid. Pure greed, bordering on very sharp practices, on the part of senior management and the PE investors. You might think he would be slightly embarrassed about revealing his 1980 Vantage.
Crusty nards in jayem
Real
Uno brah
@@James-bw1lw 🙏
On god fool
Gods plan
Am are bankrupt the lost over 500 million pounds last year 😮
True. But it's still Aston Martin. And at the current market cap of 1bn GBP, one of the major OEM will incorporate Aston Martin and add is as their halo brand. Or Strulovitch will inject more money by mans of a capital increase, which I highly doubt as massive capital is required and AM will not have an efficient cost structure as long as they are not part of a bigger R&D and manufacturing network. Same as with Bentley and Rolls-Royce in the past. Therefore, Aston will survive but it won't be the same company it was. And then of course is the question about electrification ... massive investment required paired with negative impact on the "emotional qualities" of the car. The latter is almost unsolvable for AM from my point of view.
Jay what’s up
Ruined on the first scene. Downvoted