CEO Cupra and Seat Wayne Griffiths, EL MUNDO 2021 Leading Motor Award
Project The electrification of VW and Seat will involve an investment of 10,000 million
«I am a staunch defender of the industry and when there are important projects for Spain, I not only defend them, but also show them off».
Yolanda Díaz, Second Vice President of the Government and Minister of Labor and Social Economy, thus explained her presence yesterday at the delivery of the EL MUNDO Leading Motor Award,
which went to Wayne Griffiths, president of Seat and Cupra.
«I lavish myself in few acts of this type, he said and, if he made an exception yesterday, it was also because of the « magnificent personal relationship that he maintains with the winner ».
Nicola Speroni, General Director and CEO of Unidad Editorial (UE);
Raül Blanco, General Secretary of Industry;
Marco Pompignoli, Executive President of the EU;
Yolanda Díaz, Second Vice President and Minister of Labor and Social Economy;
Wayne Griffiths, president of Seat/Cupra and Joaquin Manso, director of ALBERTO DI LOLLI/ANGEL NAVARRETE
“The automotive industry is vital for this country. They have an ally in me in those transformations that they have to undertake. Anything I can do, I'm going to do”
, he said, adding that whenever he goes to meetings abroad he boasts of an industry that is the second in Europe and contributes up to 10% of the national GDP.
She also wanted to highlight, in her capacity as Minister of Labor and Social Economy,
that employment in the sector is of quality, stable and with remuneration above the average.
An achievement that is based on the mature relationship between workers and manufacturers when negotiating flexibility agreements in collective agreements.
Vice President Díaz, during her speech
Create more than destroy
The vice president agreed to highlight "the enormous challenge" that the sector is currently experiencing, with the double aspect of digitization and the ecological transition of the automobile.
“But it is full of opportunities.
If we do things right as a country, we are going to build many more jobs than are destroyed, with more quality and productivity,”
she stressed.
In fact, and yesterday it was mentioned again, the development of the PERTE of the Electric Vehicle -not yet executed- will mean the creation of 140,000 new jobs and a contribution of between 1% and 2% of GDP.
Showing off the special personal relationship with the winner, he in turn launched a challenge:
"That Cupra is also for women, who are an enormous vector of mobility and, therefore, also of purchase".
Delivery of the XVI EL MUNDO Motor Protagonist Award
An award in its XVI edition
In essence, a good part of that speech coincided with that of Griffiths, who received his award at the traditional meeting held at the
Westin Palace Hotel in Madrid and which was sponsored by Hankook and Repsol.
The Motoring Protagonists award is now in its 16th edition and the great figures of the world automotive industry have won it, from Carlos Ghosn (Renault) to Sergio Marchionne (FCA), passing through Mary Barra (GM), Alan Mullaly ( Ford) or Martin Winterkorn (VW).
Three illustrious Spaniards also appear on the list
: Francisco Javier García-Sanz (VW), José Vicente de los Mozos (Renault) and José Muñoz (Hyundai).
Wayne Griffhits, the winner
"Two of them, García Sanz and De Meo, were decisive for me to return to Seat in 2016", declared the winner at the beginning of his speech.
In it, he asked businessmen and politicians to make decisions "now" even if they have their impact in 10 years,
while encouraging them to be "generous and not short-sighted" in this environment of uncertainty and transformation that the automotive industry is experiencing.
Investment of 10,000 million
"Today the only certain thing is that everything is uncertain and
we have to get used to this volatility, but I am an optimist and I see crises as opportunities," he
said.
In this sense, she recalled the investment of up to 10,000 million euros that the project will carry "to promote the electrification of Spain with the largest industrial investment in our history."
Diaz and Manso presented the award
But
he wanted to highlight the contradiction between the scope of projects like this, and the reality of sales or the development of the recharge network.
Two shortcomings that Vice President Díaz also admitted.
«Electrified vehicles are barely 9% of total car sales today in Spain.
That is to say, half of the European average, which is even reached by our Portuguese neighbors» he gave as an example of this deficit.
Another equally convincing: the registrations of the Cupra Born, the first 100% electric model of this brand, are in Austria four times higher than in our country, with a fifth of the population.
Griffiths, in the traditional signing of the poster with his image
Times of change
The success of Cupra, of which Griffiths was a co-founder in 2018, is one of the merits that has made it worthy of the award.
Another is "leading one of the great industrial projects in Europe: the electrification of the Seat and Volkswagen factories in Spain
and the large battery factory in Sagunto," said the director of EL MUNDO, Joaquín Manso, who opened the round of speeches before to deliver the award to alimón with Díaz.
He also referred
to Cupra because the idea is to make it the first global Spanish brand.
And because its electric and fun cars exemplify the transformation that the automobile industry is experiencing in Spain... and this same newspaper.
The director of EL MUNDO, Joaquin Manso
For the new generations
«When the new management of the newspaper introduced ourselves a few months ago, we said of ourselves that we will try to build,
on top of what we already have, a new newspaper for a new generation of readers.
You too are looking to build from what you already have a new car for a new generation of car users.
They can trust us to accompany them.
Trust the newspaper EL MUNDO », she declared emphatically.
Although he went further by declaring that "this is also a time to reiterate our founding commitment
to the symbol of an open society, freedom and progress that is the mass automobile," said Manso.
“All economic activity is crossed by two vectors of transformation: digitization and decarbonization.
Successfully facing this challenge requires getting the training and adaptation of workers right to the new needs of production»
she analyzed on a matter for which Diaz offered the public resources available to her department.
“Another great challenge is to compensate for the losses in traditional employment that may occur with the new alternatives that
will arise in the value chain and that we will have to define in accordance with a great country plan.
They can count on us in that process.”
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