According to a story in the Financial Times of London, Pischetsrieder says VW could achieve sales of 750,000 units a year in North America in the next couple of years, up from the 490,000 it sold in 2001, about 356,000 of which were VWs and the rest Audis, with a few Rolls and Bentley models as well.
Canada historically sells about one-tenth of what the US sells, but that's been off a little recently as Canadians have been buying significantly fewer cars from VW in 2002 than they did last year.
Using the 10 percent ratio, however, it would mean that VW would have to sell about 75,000 units in Canada by 2005 to meet the chairman's goal.
In reply to a query, Bernice Holman of VW's regional office in Ajax, Ontario, said the company expects to get this year's sales numbers up to 44,000 for VW and 6,000 for Audi.
"Since we will get a number of new models in the next year," Holman said, "including the Passat W8, the Phaeton luxury sedan, the Touareg SUV, the Jetta Wagon, the A4 Cabrio and so on, our sales should increase in 2003."
But Holman added that they "do not have any exact projections for next year or the next three or four years," and that maintaining the 10-1 ratio with the US "depends very much on the economy."
Pischetsrieder suggests that half of Touareg's 100,000 annual production would be sold in the U.S., which means they may be looking to sell as many as 5,000 units of the upscale SUV a year in Canada as early as next year.
On the question of North America's importance to VW as a profit centre, consider that VW's profits from North America rose to E362 million on sales of E4.27 billion in the first quarter of 2002, up from E323 million on sales of E3.82 billion in the first three months of 2001.