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Volkswagen names new chief designer for Bentley

The Volkswagen Group has named one of its own to head up the design department at its Bentley division. The role now falls to Stefan Sielaff, who has been with the group (off and on) since 1990. Sielaff is principally an interior designer, but has been tasked with setting up numerous overall design offices for Volkswagen and Audi over the years. In his new capacity he'll be reporting to the group's chief engineer Rolf Frech (and oddly not to Bentley chief Wolfgang Durheimer), but at the same time, Sielaff will retain his role as head of interior design for the entire VW group, reporting to its chief designer Walter de Silva. Sielaff replaces Luc Donckerwolke, who has headed up Bentley design since 2012 and is leaving the company. We'll be on the lookout to see where Donckerwolke lands next. Crewe/Wolfsburg, 04 June 2015 Stefan Sielaff to head design at the Bentley brand • Sielaff also responsible for Group Interior Design Strategy Stefan Sielaff (53), currently Head of the Volkswagen Design Center in Potsdam, will assume responsibility for design at the Bentley brand effective July 1, 2015 in addition to his present post as Head of Group Interior Design Strategy. As Director of Design at Bentley, Sielaff succeeds Luc Donckerwolke (49), who held this function since 2012. Stefan Sielaff joined the Volkswagen Group in 1990, beginning his career in the interior design department at Audi. From 1995 the design graduate was entrusted with setting up the Group's Design Center Europe in Spain. In 1997 he was placed in charge of the Design Studio in Munich and was appointed Head of Audi Interior Design in the same year. In 2003 Sielaff moved to DaimlerChrysler as Design Director of the Interior Competence Center, returning to the Volkswagen Group in 2006 to become Head of Audi Design before being appointed Head of the Volkswagen Design Center in Potsdam und Head of Group Interior Design Strategy in 2012. In his new function as Director of Design at Bentley, Sielaff reports to Rolf Frech, Board Member for Engineering. In his function as Head of Group Interior Design Strategy he continues to report to Walter de Silva, Head of Group Design. Luc Donckerwolke has decided to leave the company. De Silva said: "Luc Donckerwolke has played a key role in the design of various Group brands. We would like to thank him for his work." Related Video: News Source: Volkswagen Design/Style Hirings/Firings/Layoffs Bentley Volkswagen

VW builds 250,000th Passat in Chattanooga in just two years

It hasn't been without incident or union organizing drive, but the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, TN has built its 250,000 Passat in just a little over two years. The Night Blue Passat TDI with black leather has come just two years and five weeks after the first customer car came off the line on April 18, 2011.
In the last year the plant operated at the 150,000-unit capacity that it was intended for, but the downturn in Passat sales and subsequent worker layoffs mean it will be a challenge to repeat the feat. The plant does have the world's largest solar park, though, and you can't take that away from them.
You'll find the official hand-clapping in the press release below.

VW joins Daimler's protest of new A/C refrigerant as EU deadline for compliance passes

The case of Dupont and Honeywell's refrigerant R-1234yf is doing the exact opposite of keeping things cool. The two chemical companies have spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars developing R-1234yf to replace R-134a, the new refrigerant shown to be 99.7-percent kinder to the environment than the one it is meant to succeed. Part of that development has been years of testing by governments, outside safety agencies and automakers to approve the chemical for use in cars. It passed the protocols necessary for the European Union to declare that new and significantly revised cars from 2013 onward needed to use R-1234yf, and mandated that every car as of 2017 must use it.
Enter Daimler AG. The automaker created a head-on collision test with a B-Class at their Sindelfingen test track that would lead to the pressurized refrigerant being sprayed on the engine. The result in 20 out of 20 test was that the refrigerant burst into flames as soon as it hit the hot engine, while Daimler says that R-134a does not catch fire in the same test. Another unexpected result of the R-1234yf test was the release of hydrogen flouride, a chemical far more deadly to humans than hydrogen cyanide, emitted in such amounts that it that turned the windshield white as it began to eat into the glass.
Said a Daimler engineer in a Reuters piece, "It was scarcely believable. The most complicated lab tests conducted using the most sensitive measuring instruments around found nothing and all we do is drive a car around a couple of times, open a tiny hole in the refrigerant line and the next thing you know the car is on fire." So Daimler said it wouldn't use the refrigerant, and it recalled the cars it had already shipped with R-1234yf.