Volkswagen Emerges Strong After 9 Months
The Volkswagen Group ended the first nine months of the year with worldwide deliveries up by 13.9 percent. Last year, Volkswagen had delivered 5.36 million units by September, this year, it is 6.11 million. If VW maintains the pace – and it has done so the whole year – then it could end the year with 8.4 million units. This would be in the same league as Toyota and GM in 2010.
We will know more about GM when it publishes its quarterly results some time next month, but we can expect a growth rate of a little less than 10 percent. With that, GM should end the year solidly as number one, followed by Volkswagen, with tsunami-swamped Toyota far behind in #3.
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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Commenters will still be grousing about reliability when VW takes the sales lead. Haters hate. That photo is curiously vulgar. Almost NSFW.
Considering how many Americans have driven a German car over the past fifty years, it isn't surprising that there is a new generation of drivers interested in them once again. I mean, c'mon - how much longer are folks going to just buy Camcords and Corollas without wondering what it is like to drive something else? Japanese quality is status quo regardless of the brand. Even the worse built car is going to outlast it's payments today. Remember before all those safety standards how Volvo had something everyone else lacked? Well, it is happening in regards to durability. Toyota, Nissan, Honda and Mazda need to rediscover a reason beyond loyalty to keep folks returning to their cars. The Detroit 3 couldn't figure it out, it is now time for the Japanese to give it a go. Every generation gets tired of the same thing. After generations of sitting in Japanese cars, it seems like there is a trend towards Korean and German cars. Can't afford a typical German car like BMW, Audi or Mercedes? Then buy a VW so you can show your newfound taste in the latest auto fashion! You can't really buy Swedish anymore and the Chinese aren't ready yet, so go Deutschland!
VW is positioned right to take over the top spot. GM is still undergoing massive restructuring, so the next few years may not mean much. Once GM is back out of the woods(around 2015), they will regain the top spot and never look back. Toyota on the other hand can't seem to buy a break. The strong yen is killing them. They have barely recovered from the tsunami/quake and now all three assembly plants in thailand have shut down due to flooding and typhoons. Honda is worse off with their factory submerged under water along with hundreds of new cars.
Please forget about the VW horror stories you've read. Most of them are 10 years old, when petty electrical failures and dropping side windows complicated some owner's lives. My Beetle TDI was from perhaps the worst year, 2002, and it's a still a trustworthy car, and a keeper at 180K- but forget that, too. Just do what most buyers do- grab a copy of Consumer Reports at the grocery store. I never thought I'd see the day that CR would endorse a VW over a Toyota, but they rate the TDI well above the Prius in predicted reliability. The world moves on, and products and companies change. Let's not be so brand-loyal -- or brand-hostile -- that we can't take in new information.