VW reveals race to overtake GM, Toyota

Love your avatar TurboSyder. Great point, this could prove very bad for VW. Toyota has proven you can't have it all in short order. Time will take them there if it is to be.

Turbo, I actually agree with you on this one. VW should just continue to make great cars. That's all that is needed.

Good comment. Going big isn't a good thing. Quality product is better.

I think their pricing is fair. Their cars are solid for an "economy" brand even though their higher models are Audi- esque. They seem more premium than say a Toyota, Nissan, or Honda in my opinion so for the price you pay you are getting a well built German economy car.

Exactly... biggest is not always the best....Hello GM and Toyota
I really like what they are doing with their models right now. The only thing I do not like is the Passat interior. My stepbrother has one and it is really odd. I feels as thought the dash is really far away and I found the gauges hard to read.

AGENTS DO SOMETHING

?

I don't care which automaker is producing the most cars, it doesn't mean that it's doing the best cars. I'd rather see VW executing at first its previous plan:
"At Volkswagen, Winterkorn Makes Quality Number-One Priority
[...] Central among the plans laid out by Winterkorn is a quality benchmark described as fitting the profile of Toyota."

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=119921

So I wonder whom Mr Winterkorn is believing. But fact is that Winterkorn is benchmarking VW's quality on Toyota's. Fun to drive is quite subjective.

Than argue with Mr Winterkorn, these aren't my words that Toyota is benchmark in quality but his.

highly unlikely. VWs are way overpriced compare to Toyotas. Like Jetta costs way more than corolla, infact here in middle east it sells for around same money as Camry SE. Phaeton is again size of camry but similar powered car costs even more than avalon. They don't have any answer to Toyota's big range of SUVs like Land Cruiser, Prado, FJ, sequoia...etc. No pickups, trucks, the reliability and as famous as Toyota.

Only Golf and Polo sell well, they can't overtake giant Toyota with Eos, toureg and Phaetons.
So they may will take ever to overtake Toyota in sales.

(Note: Talking about VW as a brand and not group, the dozens of brands may jointly overtake Toyota in some 30 years)

JUGNU

Here in US surprisingly VWs are not more expensive than Toyotas if we talk about comparably equipped cars. Since Toyota still sells cars that don't have even power windows or power door locks they can still charge less for their base models but like I said, similarly equiped cars cost about the same. That makes VW a much better value considering the superior quality.

VW has some SUVs too. The Tiguan is like a luxury version of the Toyota RAV4 while the Touareg is on par with Mercedes and BMW SUVs therefore well above any SUV Toyota ever built.

Big pickup trucks and big SUVs are probably the biggest mistake Toyota ever made. Why would VW make the same mistake? Toyota sells as many Land Cruisers as VW sells Phaetons. Why go there?

You say only Golf and Polo sell well? Add the Passat to the mix and we can agree. The question is what does Toyota sell in big number other than Yaris, Corolla and Camry? I thought so.

Toyota is famous? For what? Selling cheap trashy cars?
VW was always considered a superior brand to Toyota. The Japanese were always the choice of the poor. Up to recent years they were in the same position as Koreans are now. However... never, EVER a Toyota car was considered superior to a VW by anybody other than Toyota fans.

I don't know if VW will overtake Toyota in size but when it comes to quality they will always be superior. VW > Toyota.

If you just look at VW as the base company without adding the group then yes. Audi, Lambo, Seat, Bentley, and I'm not even mentioning the truck divisions, etc; all goes up against Toyota/ GM. This isn't some pie in the sky statement. We only get a sample of what the VW Group has to offer.

Agents, could you ban the user nicknamed Star? He permanently posts falsified statements.

Banning him will permanently and quickly erase all the false data he entered. It will also eradicate his vast (paid?) effort put into misleading AutoSpies readers thus effectively discouraging him from repetitions. The goal of this site is to serve true information, right?


Star:
"Big pickup trucks and big SUVs are probably the biggest mistake Toyota ever made. Why would VW make the same mistake?"

LCVs account for more than million units sold annually.
http://oica.net/wp-content/uploads/world-ranking-2007.pdf


Star:
"Toyota sells as many Land Cruisers as VW sells Phaetons. Why go there?"

VW Phaeton sales
2002: 4,262 [3403]
2003: 7,314 [5885]
2004: 9,034 [5485]
2005: 4,809 (Excluding Europe Sales) 4,414 Europe [6001]
2006: 5,024
2007: 5,711

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=2486694


Toyota Land Cruiser sales:
2003: 220,000
2004: 235,000
2005: 260,000
2006: 270,000

http://www.toyota.com.kw/English/toyota_models/landcruiser/history/html/sales/sales_annual.html


Star:
"never, EVER a Toyota car was considered superior to a VW by anybody other than Toyota fans"

1: 2008 Toyota RAV4 Limited
2(tie): 2008 Honda CR-V AWD EX-L
2(tie): 2009 Volkswagen Tiguan SEL 4Motion

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Drives/Comparos/articleId=131851/pageId=147988

Great time for VAG to take over, because BMW is in HUGE trouble!

BMW Results Miss Expectations, Shares Tumble

March 12, 2009 12:45 CET
BMW's headquarters in Munich, Germany
Photo credit: Reuters

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -- BMW AG, the world's largest premium carmaker, said today its earnings plunged in the fourth quarter, making its 2008 results miss market expectations and sending its shares down nearly 12 percent.

BMW said group earnings before interest and tax fell 78 percent to 921 million euros ($1.18 billion), well below the average estimate of 1.54 billion euros in a Reuters poll of 20 analysts.

BMW proposed cutting its 2008 dividend on common stock to 0.30 euros from 1.06 euros after taking a writedown of 1.06 billion euros for the reduced value of cars coming off leases and for bad debts.

Its shares pared losses to trade down 8.3 percent at 21.04 euros by 1028 GMT while the DJ Stoxx European car sector index was off 3 percent.

Demand for BMW's sporty models like the Z4 roadster withered in the last quarter of 2008, forcing the company to reveal a decline of 4.3 percent in group sales volumes last year -- its first annual drop since 1993.

Much like rival Mercedes-Benz, BMW has thrived from the debt-fueled consumerism in markets like the United States where they aggressively pushed volumes for years with attractively priced leasing deals that cost the carmaker just over 1 billion euros through the end of September alone.

Analysts are now re-evaluating previous assumptions regarding the premium market's true potential, after the worst excesses of easy credit have come to a screeching halt.

In addition, increasingly stringent emission requirements are putting a massive strain on R&D budgets for Mercedes and BMW and forcing the carmakers to replace heavier engines that earn fatter margins with downsized motors.

Maybe Chris Bangle didn't want to ride around on a listing ship.

Good point. Yes, he is smart. Get off the ship and let BMW sink.

The problem with scaling up the production is quality drops. That is the formula with every company, because production time and cost drops, meaning less time/money is put into production of an average vehicle.

Albeit, efficiency has a lot to do with drop in production time and cost, but volume becomes the objective. This is a bad idea for VW, especially that VW is starting to make some nice looking/decent quality cars...

The growth of China car market will be the key to success for VW.

OK, as a VW employee I can tell you that VW is suffering here in Canada

The only car VW is selling right now is the Jetta TDi and the Jetta TDi Wagon, the Routan was a big mistake, Nobody can afford the Touareg,especially with the V8(nobody likes paying $80 to a tank and barely getting a week out of that amount of fuel), The City Golf and City Jetta arent selling either and everybody still has yet to even hear of the Tiguan. If you are going to buy a Phaeton or a Passat CC, dont waste your money and buy a BMW because you get more car for the same price.
Im not putting down VW here its just the CC and the Phaeton are a plain and simple rip-off. None of their other cars are selling either(aside from the TDi's)

SO needless to say for VW to surpass Toyota in 9 years, its not a ridiculous goal, just a hard one to reach and they'll have to clean up theit acts and actually sell more than 2 types of car (again im talking about Canada here) I don't have that big of an insight about the US or European market

-----------Its Pronounced "ZED" not "ZEE"-----------

Those GERMAN dopes always set unrealistic goals they can never meet. You know how arrogant the Krautheads are. VW makes crap, always has.