An article on the UAW’s website claims that workers at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga, Tennessee plant will vote on representation by the UAW from February 12th-14th via a secret ballot. Previously, the union had pushed for a “card check”, but it now looks like the matter will be taken to a vote.

Per the UAW

Together, Volkswagen Group of America (VWGOA) and the UAW will set a new standard in the U.S. for innovative labor-management relations that benefit the company, the entire workforce, shareholders and the community in general. From Feb. 12-14, Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tenn., will decide the issue of union representation in a secret ballot election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board. If the majority of workers vote for UAW representation, workers would then elect a bargaining committee from among VWGOA workers in Chattanooga to negotiate an agreement with the company, including how a works council would operate in the Chattanooga facility based on the principles of co-determination

It would take an immense amount of effort to prove that VW was not telling the truth in their latest Super Bowl commercial.

First you would have to pool registration data from dozens of different countries within the US, EU, Japan, China, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

That’s one tall order. To even make that remotely possible, you would have to get the data from the various states within those countries. Quite a few of them would likely have a hard time even coming up with data that is easily downloadable.

As for verification of mileage? Good luck with that! Even in the U.S. of A., not all states require emission and registration checks that verify the mileage.

So let’s remove probability altogether from VW’s Superbowl proclamation, and deal with the cold hard facts related to the wholesale side of this business.

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Photo: DPA

Porsche Automobil Holding SE’s supervisory board members and cousins Ferdinand Piech and Wolfgang Porsche are being sued by seven hedge funds that are seeking 1.8 billion euros ($2.4 billion) in compensation over damages they claim to have suffered as a result of the Porsche holding group’s failed 2008 attempt to purchase the Volkswagen Group.

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Ben Pon (left) and the first VW Beetle imported to the United States

In one of those weird coincidences, Volkswagen of America is celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Beetle in the United States just as the last VW Type 2 (aka the Volkswagen bus) ever made, which was assembled in Brazil on December 20, 2013, arrived at the vintage vehicle museum in VW Commercial Vehicles’ headquarters in Hanover, Germany. The coincidence is that importing VW Beetles to America and building the VW bus were both ideas that originated in the mind of one man, someone who didn’t even work for Volkswagen, Dutch car dealer Ben Pon. (Read More…)

On Tuesday, the New York Times published a look at the ongoing feud between pro- and anti-union forces at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It paints a picture of a political battle fought mainly by outside forces, utilizing the deep pockets of some of the nation’s most powerful lobbying groups.

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Reuters is reporting that the office of the General Counsel for the National Labor Relations Board has recommended that allegations brought by employees at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant be dismissed.

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For the second consecutive year, Toyota is the No.1 automaker in the world, followed by General Motors and Volkswagen.

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German auto club Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club e.V., or ADAC, may no longer bestow their annual Yellow Angel Award after the club admitted to vote rigging.

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Outgoing United Auto Workers president Bob King admitted that his timetable for a swift unionization of one of the auto plants in the Southeastern United States was overly optimistic.

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The United Auto Workers will, for the first time since 1967, ask their membership to pay a 25 percent increase in dues to the union in order to shore up their strike fund and fight for better contracts, a move outgoing UAW president Bob King believes the membership will overwhelmingly support.

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Another day, another early unveiling prior to the 2014 Detroit Auto Show, this time from Volkswagen AG with their 42-mpg Passat BlueMotion Concept.

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Hot hatches are all the rage in Europe but represent a fairly small segment of American consumption. The formula is fairly simple, you take a compact hatchback, insert a turbocharged engine, stiffen the springs and add an anti-roll bar that can lift the inner rear wheel in corners if you really push it. The result is the polar opposite of a pony car.

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The Conselho Nacional de Trânsito, the highest traffic authority in Brazil, has just unauthorized the Economic Ministry’s intention of opening up an exception to venereal, I mean venerable, Volkswagen Kombi (known as Bus in the U.S.). It has ratified the governmental organ’s own resolutions of 2009, which implemented a gradual, mandatory adoption of airbags and ABS systems, reaching 100 percent of cars sold in Brazil as of 2014.

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Once of the most frequent car advice emails I get is from consumers looking to cut down their fuel bills while still hanging on to a family sedan. Until recently, this question narrowed the field down to a few hybrid sedans and the Volkswagen Passat TDI. Today, there are more hybrid options than ever and soon Mazda’s diesel powered Mazda6 will enter the fray. While we wait for the Mazda’s new SkyActiv diesel to ship, I picked up a Volkswagen Passat TDI to find out if a little diesel could bring some cost reduction to my commute.

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The Brazilian auto industry has been on edge for a week and a half, as the Economic Ministry announced that the mandate for airbags and ABS on all Brazilian cars in 2014 was “under review”. Citing worries over inflation (as car prices make up an infinitesimal part of that complex calculation) and the fact that auto sales were down, the Economic Ministry said that the 2014 adoption of the aforementioned equipment might not be in Brazil’s best interest.

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