Volkswagen Hits The Brakes In Europe

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Volkswagen workers who make the Passat at the Emden factory in Germany are enjoying a mini-vacation. After the national holiday last Wednesday, which celebrated the fall of the wall and the re-unification, Volkswagen workers can celebrate falling sales of the Passat, and stay at home, says Germany’s Handelsblatt. Meanwhile, managers at Volkswagen are busy down–revising their production plans.


Passat sales are suffering from lagging fleet sales. Companies are postponing or canceling purchases in an attempt to ride out the European bust. Golf production on the other hand continues at double time. Volkswagen is sitting on a nice cushion of Golf Mk VII pre-orders.’ At the same time, production of the previous generation Golf continues.

“Until the end of the year, we build the old generation in parallel to the new model,” Volkswagen works council chief Bernd Osterloh told the Handelsblatt. “With that, we can fight the battle of the discounts without burdening the new Golf.”

August Production and Full Year Forecast8M ’128M ’11YoYProj ’12Toyota6,904,3334,757,21145.1%10,356,000GM6,421,0006,303,0001.9%9,632,000Volkswagen5,910,0005,360,00010.3%8,865,000Black: Company data. Blue: Projection, based on last available


Toyota, GM: Production. VW: Deliveries. Forecast by TTAC

Nevertheless, Volkswagen will down-revise its production plan for the current year “by 140,000 units at the maximum,” Osterloh said. What the actual production plan number was and what it will be is anybody’s guess, The Handelsblatt thinks the old number was 9.7 million units for the current year, and the new number is 9.4 million. We think that the Handelsblatt is dreaming. According to a straight line projection of global sales through August, Volkswagen should end the year at around 8.9 million units, the downturn in Europe and at home in Germany could send the number lower, a Japanese windfall in China could lift it a bit.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Asdf Asdf on Oct 05, 2012

    The current Passat is now a veteran in the market, it was launched in 2005 and is now 7 years old. If it weren't for the VW badge, Passat sales would have been nose-diving, even if there were no European crisis.

  • Wheatridger Wheatridger on Oct 05, 2012

    Dang it- why do they show us the Passat wagon that we can't buy here in the US?

  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
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