Question sur l'avenir de volks ici...

[need_for_speed]

monvolant.cyberpresse.ca/article/20071123/MVAUTOCAMION01/71123109/5781/MVAUTOCAMION01

Fais copier-coller sur la barre d'adresse

[yorneB]

VW est présentement la compagnie la plus mal gérée au Canada...

Inventaire pathétique, garage arrogant

tres vrai..et je parle en 89 avec ma GTI. Donc, pres de 20 ns plus tard, yont pas changé...

Ca ete la pire experience chez les dealer avec ma volks..et ca surtout ete la derniere que j'ai posseder

Ah... au moins tu parles d'une expérience récente.... C'est bizarre mais j'ai un excellent service chez VW Centre-Ville. Mais j'y vais pas souvent. Oups un autres mythe VW que je viens de nier. Vrai que j'ai pas beaucoup d'expérience avec VW, étant donné que c'est juste ma 5ième

[wowlesmoteurs]

ca fait une couple de fois que je lis des communiqué de VW sur des sites Européen , dont parmis les sujet, est l'ambition de VW de devenir numéro 1 mondial. un peu ridicule cette ambition a propos de VW ont s'entend , mais je pense pas qu'ont peu avoir pareil ambition en fermant son réseau de distribution au USA et au Canada.

quand je vous dit que VW a des envis de devenir le numéro 1, c'est riogolo a lire, mais ils "VW" semble sérieux ds leurs prétentions.

VW’s 10-million-unit plan
New architectures underpin effort to catch Toyota

Automotive News
November 26, 2007 - 12:01 am ET



WOLFSBURG -- Volkswagen group is planning a major change in the way it will engineer cars in the future.

The move is part of a plan to cut development costs, double its global sales and eventually catch Toyota.

The German carmaker is developing four new architectures that it will make available to all VW group brands.

The largest of these will be VW’s new transverse-engine architecture (MQB) for small-, lower-medium and upper-medium models. It could underpin up to six million cars, making it the industry’s biggest platform.

The new approach will help VW to build cars faster, cut development times by up to a year and reduce costs by 25 percent to 40 percent.

That will help VW’s ambitious drive to boost group sales to 10 million by 2018 from 5.7 million in 2006 and challenge Toyota for global leadership.

Ulrich Hackenberg, VW brand board member for development, is completing development of the MQB architecture.

“MQB is planned for a broad application, from small cars up to and including upper-medium,” Hackenberg told Automotive News Europe in an interview here. “The first model to emerge can be expected in 2010.”

Hackenberg did not specify how many models would be based on the MQB architecture. But other company sources say VW sees MQB as the logical base for replacements of at least 20 small, lower-medium and upper-medium models, plus additional new niche models.

Current models include VW’s Fox, Polo, Golf, Jetta, Beetle, Touran, Caddy, Eos and Passat; Audi’s A3 and TT; Skoda’s Fabia, Roomster, Octavia and Superb; and Seat’s Ibiza, Cordoba, Leon, Altea and Toledo.

A VW source said the next Touran, due in 2010, may be based on MQB.

Automakers use the term “architecture” to define a set of common components, a common manufacturing process and common connecting points for key component systems.

Using modular architectures should allow for a 40 percent increase in production efficiency and more “invisible” component sharing across VW’s model range. But VW MQB would be the first to cover three segments with one architecture.


Global leaders
Top platforms, by 2006 unit sales
1. VW PQ35/46 (2.30 million)
Top model: Golf
2. Toyota NBC ( 1.63 million)
Top model: Yaris
3. Ford C1/P1 (1.51 million)
Top model: Focus
Source: PwC Automotive Institute



MHB for Up

A second volume architecture called MHB will underpin VW’s New Small Family rear-engine minicar range, exemplified by its Up concept vehicles.

VW is developing another modular architecture for mid-engine sports cars, such as the Audi R8 and Lamborghinis, but perhaps even for a more-affordable Bugatti.

While he was at Audi, Hackenberg masterminded the group’s fourth architecture, MLB, which has a longitudinally mounted engine for front-drive and all-wheel-drive applications.

The first products based on MLB -- the Audi A4 and A5 -- are already on the road.

“But MLB could be used for models up to the largest in our group,” Hackenberg said.

That would appear to include not only larger Audi models such as the A6 and A8, but also replacements for the VW Phaeton and Bentleys.

Lineup expansion

VW’s current four major platforms are size-based -- mini/small, lower-medium, upper-medium and large/luxury.

Mark Fulthorpe, a senior analyst at CSM Worldwide, says the modular architecture is not only an economies-of-scale gain but also a way VW can quickly expand its lineup with niche vehicles.

“We see this as an enlargement of their platform applications, not for replacement of current models only,” he said. “The modularity and flexibility will give them a quicker response to the market, for niches.”

Fulthorpe estimated VW’s development savings at up to 40 percent, with greater gains for each model added.

In VW’s new system, basic structures can vary, but elements that matter in developing crumple zones that protect passengers -- the positions of the engine, front axle and drivers’ pedals -- are fixed. That vastly simplifies and speeds development. Crash-test computer modeling can be largely reused for each model.

[Joe 123]

Si VW devient no 1 alors moi je deviendrais curé!!! :P :P :P

Jamais au grand jamais les américains feront des achats massifs de cette marque... IL y a aura toujours l'Europe et le Québec mais pour le reste ils sont loin d'être convaincu que VW est LA marque!

[unixgolf]

Après avoir suivi VW depuis plusieurs années, ils sont sérieux.
Tout d'abord, VW a vendu tout ses actifs immobiliers pour se reconcentrer sur son "core business" ie. AUTO. Avec ce flux de $$$$ ils ont acheté : Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Seat et Skoda. Avec tous les transferts technologiques qui s'en suivent : ex. moteurs 1.8T, 2.0T , transmission Tiptronic, DSG ... Maintenant Porsche AG qui détient la majorité des actions VW (Pour conserver le tout Allemand) est en réflexion ! VW veut retourner à sa source ie. de bonnes voitures fiables et qui se vendent. Ils investissent dans plusieurs Usines (Russie, Inde) et travaillent sur 4 plate-formes qui seront partagées par toutes ces marques
plus-haut. ( http://www.germancarblog.com/2007/11...tforms-to.html )
En bref, tient bien ta tuque ... on part

À partir de Janvier 2008 VW du Canada se rapportera directement à VW- AG (Allemagne) et non plus de VW of America. Alors on aura peut-être beacoup plus de choix en entrées de gamme, genre Polo, CrossGolf qui serait une compétition directe avec toutes les Toyota Matrix et etc...

À suivre.

[wowlesmoteurs]

VW est tres loin de vouloir quitté le marcher nord Américain

Chrysler, VW Getting Closer?
VW talking up more N.A. production.

The ink is hardly dry on the Chrysler-Daimler divorce papers, but already, another German carmaker could be waiting in the wings for the American carmaker.

David Cole, chairman of the Center For Automotive Research, said competition is forcing automakers to consider options they might not have contemplated only 12 months ago.

"There is going to be another round of mergers in the auto industry and the one company that matches up well with Volkswagen is Chrysler," he noted.

Volkswagen already has a joint project with Chrysler to develop a new minivan, which will be assembled by Chrysler in the next couple of years and will be sold in the U.S.

"VW needs a strong presence in North America. In a complimentary and synergistic relationship, Chrysler has got a lot to offer. The scale that General Motors and Toyota have are absolute killers. The only thing you can do is match up to them. GM will have taken $5,000 out of the cost of a car soon," Cole noted.

Carlos Ghosn, the chairman of Renault/Nissan, has expressed an interest in Chrysler, Cole said. Ghosn said he had not spoken with anybody at Chrysler about an alliance. However, he noted, for strategic reasons, the Renault-Nissan alliance needed to bolster its relatively small presence in North America.

Cole, however, said there is little doubt VW is going to have to move quickly to develop a new North American strategy. A new study by CAR indicated autoworkers in western Europe are making almost $10 more per hour than their counterparts in the U.S. The study was finished even before the U.S. dollar began its most recent slide.

Until now, Europeans carmakers have been able to fend off the challenge by charging a premium for their vehicles and with hedging strategies in which they built different pieces of the vehicle in other parts of the world where labor costs are lower.

VW had operated an assembly plant in western Pennsylvania during the 1980s but shut it down in the late 1980s after sales of the VW models built at the factory dropped sharply. By the time it closed, the utilization of the Pennsylvania plant had dropped to under 40 percent. Since then, VW executives have talked about building cars in the U.S. again, but few observers believed they were serious since the employee representatives on the company's board of supervisors opposed the idea.

However, with the euro trading at $1.50, the idea has taken on a new urgency. Volkswagen is at the point where it needs to build more vehicles in North America if it is serious about expanding sales in this market because it will becoming too expensive to export from Europe to the U.S., Cole said.

"The euro is a killer," he said.

Meanwhile, VW officials have confirmed that the German automaker is considering building a new plant in North America.

VWoA Chief Executive Stefan Jacoby said at the Los Angeles Auto Show last month that the company would offer more details on possible plans for additional North American production capacity within the next six months.

"There are a number of factors that we need to consider in this decision and we will make an announcement in the next six months on whether or not we will proceed with this initiative," he said.

One possibility, VW officials noted, is to expand the company's existing North American plant in Puebla, Mexico. Cole, however, said the Mexican plant specializes in small cars and VW probably wants to use a new plant for a very different product - one that could broaden its appeal to consumers.

"If they want to sell a million vehicles in the U.S., they're going to have to do something else," he said.

VW announced last week it planned to invest $14.1 billion over the next three years in new products, plants and production capacity. The Volkswagen Passenger Cars unit will invest more than half the money - $9.6 billion - in new products, a company statement said.

Another $2.5 billion was set aside for new production plants in India and Russia and a paint shop in Pamplona, Spain. Another $711 million will be spent at its main plant in Wolfsburg. The statement, however, didn't contain any specific information about North America and the ultimate decision on the company's future strategy could be scrambled or delayed by a new investigation by German authorities into the activities of VW's top executives