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10 FROM THE TOP » CARLOS ZARLENGA, GENERAL MOTORS December 2018 | AutoData T his is the second time Carlos Zarlenga is on the pages of this From the Top this year - the first timewas inMarch. The reason he is here again is totally justified: GM Mercosul’s president was elected Personality of theYear of the 2018 AutoData Award, cho- sen as the preferred voter among three other leading names in the automotive industry, CarlosAlberto Oliveira Andrade, of Caoa, Pablo Di Si of Volkswagen, and Roberto Cortes of VWCO. Aprobable reason for the award is hiswide vision and direct and ho- nest observations over the most fundamental themes of our auto- motive industry, as it is evident in this interview one more time. GM’s executive openly spoke about the spending cuts of the company in the USA, Rota 2030, market lea- dership and much more. By Leandro Alves 2 in 2019, 11 in 2018 the product portfolio, specifically, we learned the lesson well in 2011, when it all got old. We relaunched the company and from there it was vehicle, vehicle, vehicle and vehicle andwe will not stop there. Wewill have eleven launches next year, it is fundamental. Besides that we have a strong and constant search for cost reduction in everything we do. What are the eleven launches for next year? We have already announced six of them: Equinox Midnight, Bolt, Camaro, Camaro convertible and new Cruze hatch and sedan. There are five to announce, and I guarantee that the market will be sur- prised. We are investing in vehicle and brand to keep selling at the pacewe are selling, and there will be more a little ahead, wewill have even more launches in 2020, so much more. Does it mean that your primary goal is to maintain market leadership? If you observe our market share, it is al- most always the same, there is regularity, it does not fluctuate a lot frommonth to month, we don’t have 97% in one mon- We are at the end of 2018. What would you highlight this year, in particular for GM? We will end the year as the leader for the third time, and with a market share higher than last year even keeping São Caetano and Gravataí closed for eight weeks in the first quarter as part of the preparation process for the investments of newvehicles in these factories. At this time we had no cars to sell, but we ma- naged to balance it later. The relevant is that our growth is natural, we are not making any additional effort, we even raised the prices more than others. And howwas it possible, since the com- petitors do not usually lose opportuni- ties like these? We didn’t get there onlywith the product. We have a team at GM today completely different fromwhat we had in the past, we registered record engagement. We have eliminated a lot of internal bureaucracy, we have reduced hierarchical levels, now everything flows faster. There is also our chain, which is simply amazing, they are partners, help us understand themarket, we make a very strong combination. In