To develop a new car takes a lot of cash, with unsure payback in some 5 years. During carmageddon, most large automakers delayed or stopped development of new cars. These new cars are missing now, especially at GM and rival Toyota.
Volkswagen went through carmageddon relatively unscathed and never stopped developing. Actually, they approved a record R&D budget of $71 billion for vehicle development and to boost production capacity from 2011 to 2015.
A preview of what all that money can buy will be given at the Geneva Motorshow, to be held from March 3 through 13th. According to Automotive News [sub], Volkswagen will show and unprecedented total of seven concept cars at the Autosalon. These concepts are used to gauge the reaction of press and public, and to confuse the competition a bit.
Because it’s a long way from concept to showroom, Volkswagen will light one of their favorite “Modellfeuerwerke” this year. “Model fireworks” used to be a VW internal term for a barrage of new launches. It became part of the German language. In 2011, Volkswagen alone will fire a broadside, from their small UP! (finally…) to new versions of Jetta, Tiguan, Beetle and Golf Cabrio, all available in Europe this year. Audi will bring the Q3, the new A6, a 340 hp RS3, an A8 with W12 engine, an A5 refresh, and we probably missed some.
And they haven’t even started spending those $71 billion …
Sometimes I get the impression you confuse this job
with your old position at VW Marketing. ;)
I am joking, but the frequency of positive VW News
has definitely increased since you joined TTAC. =)
But without these articles, how will people be able to unleash their pent-up VW hostility? You know, those who owned a VW diesel Rabbit 25 years ago and now want to tell anyone who will listen how it required more repairs (in the shop at least once a month) and caused them more problems than the neighbor’s Ferrari, etc etc.
Register your complaint with Luca Ciferri of Automotive News ….
lol
[sub]
Bertel,
Your can add to your 2011 list the next generation A3 as well. It probably won’t debut until later this year, but after being pushed back in lieu of the Q3, A7 and A6 projects it should see the light of day…finally.
So long as Volkswagen/Audi can continue to improve their overall reliability, I’ll be happy. Audi seems to have done a significantly better job with the new B8 platform, in terms of reliability, but I’m most interested to see how the new A8, A7 and A6 fare considering all the new technology packed into those.
One good sign of VW’s quality turnaround is the speed with which they implemented a significant change to the 2.0T engine in 2008.5. The original FSI 2.0T was plagued with problems from cracked coolant flanges, failing PCVs, diverter valves, excessive early stage carbon buildup and the dreaded cam-follower implosion which would lead to destruction of the cam shaft and high pressure turbo pump. Volkswagen completely overhauled the 2.0T to eliminate these problems and the word is that since the 2008.5 changeover the 2.0T has been rock solid.
There have been intermittent issues, such as water pump detonations in the new 3.0T in the new S4, Q7 and previous gen A6, but that was correctly fairly quickly as well. Keep it up, VW!
I feel like what a non-GM owner must have felt when talking to a GM fan in the year 2000 —
“well… if you buy the export market Chevy Thingamajig with the Buick 3800, but make sure you get the 3.21 final drive ratio because that means that you get a Turbo Hydromatic made on Ontario and don’t forget to use premium gas because the knock sensor is faulty – you’ll have a reliable GM car. Oh.. don’t forget to get the FE3 suspension or you’ll get the bad bushings and you’ll creek and squeak down the road. Oh Oh OH! Make sure the date code on the VIN is divisible by 22 evenly – that’s when the shifts changed over and the workers were rested.”
And when I say “GM fan”, I talking about me… mea culpa.
Well.. if automotive news posts a story it doesn’t automatically end up on TTAC as well..
you select which story’s are of interest to TTAC readership.. ;)
I am not complaining, I am interested in car news from all over the world, so I would be less interested if all TTAC contributers where from the US only.
I am quite aware of the fact, that VW is doing well and might even reach its crazy 2018 goals.
When reading comments on US-Car-Websites one could get the impression VW was on the verge of going under.
I have no Idea if your output of positive VW news has any impact on that. :)
I’ve had good luck with Audi’s and some VW’s. My 2010 Jetta TDI was a total piece of trash. hope they spend a few bucks of the $71B and fix that with the next model
VW and Audi have lots of cars I would be interested in, but from people I know who own them, I couldn’t deal with the outlandish repair bills for what should be relatively easy fixes. How VW manages to sell so many cars is beyond me, unless the stories I hear and read are inaccurate. Too bad they don’t appear to do very well in the U.S.
GM doesn’t have new cars? Volt, Verano, Sonic, Regal, and Cruze don’t count? I’m no GM fanboy, but for a company that was nearly vaporized a couple years ago I think they’re doing pretty well.
Vaporized….vapor…Chevy Vapor! I like the sound of that!
GM’s product development is at least 12, more likely 18, months behind schedule because they just about stopped spending any money on any new product not already greenlighted as they were rentrenching during the meltdown and bankruptcy.
Actually, GM wasn’t the only company to cut back on product development spending. You could see that at this year’s NAIAS with about 1/4 fewer product and concept introductions as was typical a few years ago. There used to be 2 1/2 days of press conferences, this year it was mostly one long day. Chicago used to be 1 1/2 days, this year it’s one day of pressers and a day of social media networking.
They need reliable cars, which we will have to wait and see if these are worth anything. Likely not.
Unfortunately all of my favorite VW models aren’t sold in the US, and they don’t have solid plans to sell them here, either: Polo BlueMotion, Scirocco, Scirocco TDI, Amarok, and Up. And I don’t know why they never brought back the Microbus, but they just plain should. Anything would sell better than the dowdy Routan.
I don’t understand what people talk about when they say VW is unreliable. I have owned cars from Jaguar, VW, Toyota, BMW, MINI, Subaru and Honda, and I can say that every single car I have owned had great reliability. (less than $300 unscheduled maintenance, less than $1000 scheduled maintenance per year) I drive about 25k miles a year in the DC area. So I simply don’t believe people when they say that VW is unreliable. I think it has a lot to do with the driver.
I owned a 2007 GTI (ordered) for nearly 40 months. In that time, I had 58k miles and averaged over 31mpg. Considering those stats, it is clear that it was driven pretty gently and 95% highway. Are two AC compressor failures in 58k miles normal? What about the bass going all the way up when I’d turn at a certain stoplight? Cruise control stalk fail while driving cross country? O2 sensor failure? Paint chipping off the rear bumper (covered under warranty at 5k miles)? Clearcoat coming off the wheels? Parking brake handle breaking off in my hand? That doesn’t even include the 4 recalls I had to bring it in for. As much as I loved that car, it was certainly not what I’d consider reliable.
I’ve had friends that owned VW’s over the last 30 years or so. None of them own a VW now. A couple of them still complain about the nightmares they had with them. They all had Beetles when they first started driving and thought the new one would be as good. That was a dream.