Another carmaker dumps Detroit

Detroit will be losing another carmaker with news today that Bentley will be moving its North American corporate headquarters to Boston by mid next year. This makes Bentley the second carmaker to be leaving Detroit following the announcement last month that Volkswagen would be moving its U.S. offices from Detroit to suburban Washington.
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S4cabriofoxone - 10/6/2007 11:37:53 AM

+1 Boost

Interesting. Bentley and VW will be at opposite sides of the country.

Hyundai - 10/6/2007 1:09:18 PM

+1 Boost

S4, actually, the new HQ for VW will be in the state of Virginia. So, VW and Bentley will be located on the same coast, not too far from each other.

"GOTHENBURG, Sweden: Volkswagen, the largest European carmaker, said Thursday that it would move its U.S. headquarters to Virginia from Michigan and eliminate 400 jobs after four consecutive years of losses in the country.

The company plans to move 400 people to the new headquarters in Herndon, Virginia, just outside Washington,..."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/06/bloomberg/bxvw.php

S4cabriofoxone - 10/6/2007 5:42:44 PM

+2 Boost

Oh. I had gotten the notion that it would be around Washington STATE- not Washington, D.C.

rok_altima - 10/6/2007 5:31:06 PM

+1 Boost

Because the U.S. is the single largest car market in the entire world. VW used to be popular, but they went a bit too far with trying to be "luxury" instead of the "everyday" brand it should be, and people are not willing to pay the price.

S4cabriofoxone - 10/6/2007 5:44:26 PM

-3 Boost

Not exactly. I know you're referring to the Phaeton, but VW's main problem is the strength of the Euro compared to the weakness of the dollar. The Japanese keep the yen artificially weak to maintain low costs for sale in the US, but it's hard for European volume brands like VW to be successful in the US. If they priced their cars much lower, they would lose a lot of money. So they just have to try to work around it with better products that are worth the money- and they are.