Volkswagen Plans For the Future With Four Platform Strategy
Volkswagen is fomenting plans that will help it reach its stated goal of selling 10 million units per year within the next decade. Pursuant to these goals is the development of four new vehicle platforms that will streamline production while cutting costs on a major scale.
(Click through the jump to read on about VW’s four new platforms.)
The first and arguably most critical new platform for Volkswagen is the “upper-medium
Comments
Jeff
Hey VW..... Good planning, but your big concern should be quality!
Ducati Minor
Motive had an article with VW's chief executive officer for America, Stefan Jacoby. The interview was disappointing and reminded me of an EGM interview with the head of SCEA over the poor sales of the PlayStation 3. Jacoby came off evasive about VW's problems with reliability. He admitted VW needed a direction, but seemed confused as to what that direction should be.
Even if Volkswagen were to bail out of the US market (which is hard to see), it has a strong presence in Latin America, Europe, and the Orient. Volkswagen needs to go back to building low-cost, dependable passenger cars. It should put focus on exporting cutting-edge diesel technology to carve a niche for itself in the US. Audi has done a fine job in dominating the race track, but it should do more to improve its line of passenger sedans by trimming pounds and reducing the nose-heavy weight bias.
Throopspeed
Simplify, simplify, a great idea in this case as VW really has brand scatter, so a common underpinning setup is the only way to maintain order and reason. That being said, they make (and this is a generalization) nice cars that don't last and Americans know it. I have met these high level VOA muckities and they are very insular and disconected from their dealer base as well as their customers. To me it's a miracle that there is any customer satisfaction at all, ever. So let's just say that World Domination has a few pitfalls in it's path....
hwyhobo
Ducati Minor, Throopspeed, are the VW's reliability problems local to the US (and potentially related to their Mexico assembly plants), or is it world wide and related to other, deeper VW's problems? I believe the perception of VW's quality to be better in Europe than in the US. Is it just a matter of different expectations?
rickk
My bro was a Sr. exec with VWoA in the early 60's to 80's, and he has/is clear its the plants south of the border. He only recommends the German made cars. Perhaps this is why VW is again looking at plants in the USA (like the one Chrysler bought from them in Westmoreland Coutny PA. way back).
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