Automotive
John Krafcik, former chief executive of Fountain Valley-based Hyundai Motor America Inc. plans to join Google Inc. later this month to lead the technology company’s self-driving car project. He most recently had been president of Truecar Inc. in Santa Monica, which provides prices and other services to car buyers, for about 18 months. Prior to that he spent about five years in charge of Hyundai Motor’s operations here. Mountain View-based Google began working on a self-driving car in 2009.
Distribution
Seattle-based Amazon.com began offering its Prime Now delivery service for groceries, household goods and electronics to Amazon Prime program members in Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Irvine, Newport Beach, Orange, and Santa Ana, among other Southern California cities. Amazon Prime members pay $99 a year for unlimited delivery services from the company’s main e-commerce website. The service offered as Prime Now is free for two-hour deliveries, with a $7.99 fee for one-hour service.
Education
The University of California-Irvine ranked No. 1 out of 179 schools in a New York Times measure of access to college for lower- and middle-income students. The newspaper’s College Access Index considered three elements: what percent of students at the school received a federal Pell grant, which commonly go to families with household incomes of less than $70,000 a year; the net costs to students after financial aid; and graduation rates of those students.
Hospitality
City officials in both Santa Ana and Anaheim approved 45-day moratoriums on temporary rentals of residential residences. The trend, fueled in part by online services such as Airbnb, has drawn complaints from some residents who claim transient occupants often create disturbances and annoyances in neighborhoods (see related OC Insider item, page 3).
Media
Steve Lind will move from president of Kelley Blue Book in Irvine to executive vice president of operations at Cox Automotive Media, a newly formed division of Atlanta-based Cox Automotive Inc. Kelley Blue Book will be overseen by Mike Sadowski, the unit’s vice president of operations and general manager. Cox Automotive Inc. was formed to oversee both Kelley Blue Book and its Atlanta-based AutoTrader.com. The combination of the two operations is billed as a way for Kelley and AutoTrader—which serve car buyers in ways that can overlap—to work more closely together. Each unit is expected to keep independent staffs. Lind had been president of Kelley since August of last year when Jared Rowe moved from president of that unit to president of AutoTrader.com. Rowe will lead the new division as chief executive.
Philanthropy
The Mazda Foundation gave $500,000 to Irvine-based Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County. The foundation is the charitable arm of Irvine-based Mazda North American Operations. The Mazda Foundation has contributed over $8 million to various organizations since its founding in 1992.
Restaurants
Irvine-based Taco Bell Corp. closed its experimental “fast-casual” U.S. Taco Co. restaurant in Huntington Beach after about a year, citing “lower-than-anticipated foot traffic.”
Pielogy Pizzeria in Rancho Santa Margarita plans through franchisee Progressive Pies LLC to open three restaurants in Guam and Saipan with the first to open early next year. Guam and Saipan are U.S. territories in the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific Ocean. Progressive Pies LLC is affiliated with companies that franchise Applebee’s Grill & Bar and IHOP in the region.
Capriotti’s Sandwich Shops, which was purportedly planning to grow its presence into 35 locations in Orange County, will end its relationship with the franchisee of the four restaurants it has opened here since 2012. The chain said it hopes to find new franchisees in Tustin, Irvine, Newport Beach and Fountain Valley.
Retail
Emeryville-based discount grocery chain Grocery Outlet Bargain Market announced plans to open 14 stores in Orange and Los Angeles counties over the next year, including locations in Costa Mesa and Westminster as early as December. The announcement came about a week after Bellingham, Wash.-based Haggen Food & Pharmacy filed for bankruptcy less than a year after is bought more than 100 locations that had been Vons and Albertsons stores, including 11 in OC (see related story on Alberstons distribution center, page 1).
