The Positive Side Of The EU Malaise: No Urus
There is a GOD: With Europe paying a lot of penance for its sins, we might be spared hell in form of a Lamborghini and Bentley SUV. In order to save cash for Volkswagen, the company may put the Lamborghini Urus and the Bentley SUV, codenamed EXP9F, on ice, Reuters says.
The decision will come on November 23, when the Supervisory Board reviews planned spending on equipment, factories and vehicles. In crisis times, extravagant projects are first to go.
The show-off SUVs won’t bring much to the bottom line, says a study of IHS Automotive.
The forecast sees the Bentley SUV peak at fewer than 4,000 cars in 2016, while the Lamborghini Urus could reach a maximum of fewer than 2,400 in 2018. Lamborghini especially needs to keep a low profile. The brand never made money since bought by Volkswagen. It is considered a boardroom toy, and its sole reason for being is that the Volkswagen board has Bugatti, and the Audi board wanted a toy of their own.
It the Paris auto show, Volkswagen CFO Hans Dieter Poetsch signaled the possibility of further austerity measures:
“In this environment, we need to have a considerable amount of liquidity available. It’s normal that one looks for items that aren’t imperative.”
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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As a huge Bentley fan, I liked the idea of having an SUV on the Touareg/Q7/Cayenne platform. It would have gone along with the also-VW-engineered Bentley Continental family. Whether it would have been a profit or not, I don't know, but what I do know is that if it is not produced, there will be several disappointed aristocrats who will have to settle with their boxy Range Rovers, or maybe that hideous Maserati Kubang when it comes to production... The Urus, on the other hand, is just godawful. But more than that, Lamborghini is suffering from internal issues with the way it builds its cars. The relatively-new Aventador is being slammed by the presses for not living up to anything but top-speed (making it no-match whatsoever for nearby-competitor Ferrari). It is a known fact that the less-expensive a car is, the more nitpicky its buyers are. No, the Veyron doesn't offer navigation or any real creature comforts to go with its astronomical price, but you put up with it because it's a Veyron. But delete something on an Accord-buyers spec-list and see if he doesn't go bananas. Presumably the Urus would be priced lower than either the Aventador or the Gallardo, and thus Lamborghini really needs to focus on well-roundedness and livability before the company traverses into more-mainstream models. It's not always about presentation.
I've never understood why, in our capitalist society, people get so bent out of shape over what vehicle someone ELSE chooses to drive.