Volkswagen Has What Others Need: New Cars Galore
To develop a new car takes a lot of cash, with unsure payback in some 5 years. During carmageddon, most large automakers delayed or stopped development of new cars. These new cars are missing now, especially at GM and rival Toyota.
Volkswagen went through carmageddon relatively unscathed and never stopped developing. Actually, they approved a record R&D budget of $71 billion for vehicle development and to boost production capacity from 2011 to 2015.
A preview of what all that money can buy will be given at the Geneva Motorshow, to be held from March 3 through 13th.
Because it’s a long way from concept to showroom, Volkswagen will light one of their favorite “Modellfeuerwerke” this year. “Model fireworks” used to be a VW internal term for a barrage of new launches. It became part of the German language. In 2011, Volkswagen alone will fire a broadside, from their small UP! (finally…) to new versions of Jetta, Tiguan, Beetle and Golf Cabrio, all available in Europe this year. Audi will bring the Q3, the new A6, a 340 hp RS3, an A8 with W12 engine, an A5 refresh, and we probably missed some.
And they haven’t even started spending those $71 billion …
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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They need reliable cars, which we will have to wait and see if these are worth anything. Likely not.
Unfortunately all of my favorite VW models aren't sold in the US, and they don't have solid plans to sell them here, either: Polo BlueMotion, Scirocco, Scirocco TDI, Amarok, and Up. And I don't know why they never brought back the Microbus, but they just plain should. Anything would sell better than the dowdy Routan.
I don't understand what people talk about when they say VW is unreliable. I have owned cars from Jaguar, VW, Toyota, BMW, MINI, Subaru and Honda, and I can say that every single car I have owned had great reliability. (less than $300 unscheduled maintenance, less than $1000 scheduled maintenance per year) I drive about 25k miles a year in the DC area. So I simply don't believe people when they say that VW is unreliable. I think it has a lot to do with the driver.
I've had friends that owned VW's over the last 30 years or so. None of them own a VW now. A couple of them still complain about the nightmares they had with them. They all had Beetles when they first started driving and thought the new one would be as good. That was a dream.