#vwag

This has been in the rumormill for a few months now. Finally we have some inside news as to the possibility of a new VW factory in the United States. According to Automobilwoche, a German sister magazine to Automotive News. In an interview with VW production chief Jochem Heizmann, "Our scouts are looking full speed in Mexico and the United States."

Sounds pretty strong for a company that did not know if they were going to try another U.S. factory a few months ago. Insiders at VW are looking strongly at the southeastern U.S. for a plant location. VW current North American factory in Pueblo, Mexico is currently nearing on their full capacity of 450,500 units for this year. The plant currently produces the New Beetle and Jetta models. Pueblo was also the last factory still producing the original air cooled Beetle which ended production in 2003.

As part of Volkswagen's Strategy 2018. A new U.S. assembly plant would help to boost VW U.S. sales to 800,000 units a year. Up from 329,112 U.S. sales in 2006.

Volkswagen's last try at a U.S. based factory was from 1978-1988 in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.

Source: Automotive News

The “New Small Family” from Volkswagen is gaining speed on its journey to the future. Just six weeks after the world premiere of the up! – the two-door city specialist – Europe’s largest automobile producer is now introducing the second member of the “New Small Family” at the Tokyo Motor Show: The space up! concept car. “The world premiere of the up! at the IAA in Frankfurt served as an initial test to see how the concept of our New Small Family would be received in Europe. And the results of this test were more than favorable,” says Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, Head of Technical Development. Volkswagen’s chief engineer continues: “The second member of this new family now follows in the space up!. The small van shows that we are consistently exploiting every millimeter of space and creating an emotional design. ”Walter de Silva, Chief Designer of the Volkswagen Group, underscores the assessment of the board member heading development: “In formal design terms, one can see that the space up! is fun and at the same time offers maximum space on the smallest of platforms. Our New Small Family brings a smile back to the road. An exceptionally amiable charisma unites the up! and the space up! now being presented in Tokyo. At the same time, it is apparent at first glance that despite all of the emotionality of this car we avoided superfluous gimmicks of any kind. This has created a very straight-lined and confident design.” The space up! is a small space wonder. On just 3.68 meters (141.7 inches) length and 1.63 meters (64.2 inches) width, it offers the space of a considerably larger vehicle. The clever space concept of the space up! is to a great extent attributable to its engine layout: The environmentally-friendly gasoline, diesel and electric powertrains of the future up! family are always located in the rear – just like on the Beetle and the Bulli (Microbus) of the past. A brief comparison: The space up! is exactly 23 centimeters longer than the up! shown at the IAA in Frankfurt; accordingly, its wheelbase is also larger (2.56 meter). At 1.54 meter, the van exhibits a height gain of four centimeters. In contrast to the two-door up!, the space up! has four doors. And in actuality there are even six. That is because the van concept car does not have a classic tailgate, but instead a two-part rear door. Hidden behind this door are 220 to 1,005 liters of cargo space, four seat positions that are multivariable in design, and an exceptionally innovative cockpit concept. Numerous functions are controlled via a touch screen with 3D graphics and proximity sensors. Volkswagen is introducing the space up! as the second model variant of the “New Small Family”. The up! concept car presented at the IAA in Germany and the space up! now being shown in Japan are unified by a common design philosophy. The cars are characterized by a simple, clear language of forms. The designers consciously omitted any superfluous gimmicks. Like the up!, the space up! is characterized by a completely new harmony between technical layout, on the one hand, and emotional design on the other. Front end: Distinguishing the front end of the “New Small Family” are the headlamps that take an inward diagonal line, between them the horizontally integrated air inlets (minimized aperture optimizes aerodynamics), the VW logo arranged on the front hood (as the only exterior detail kept in chrome) and the smooth-surfaced bumper with a lower segment. An important new aspect when it comes to the headlamp design of the space up!. Here they extend far into the fender, and this also affects the side profile. Side profile: On its sides, the concept car – like the “Bulli” in earlier days – exhibits a long extended window section and a clearly distinctive, powerful C-pillar whose form is typical of Volkswagen. The A-pillar is positioned far forward. The space between the A and C pillars is spanned by the line of butterfly doors with opposing hinges. Both the front and rear doors are opened by door handles at the height of the B pillars. Since they open in opposition, in the style of the legendary Samba bus, and extend across nearly the entire space between the wheel housings – i.e. the entire sill length – all four seating positions are exceptionally convenient to access. A key concept here is wheel housings: Hidden under them are the self-confident and large 18-inch wheels with size 165/50 tires. Distinctive in this area are the short front and rear overhangs. The front overhang, from the axle hub to the outer skin of the bumper measures just 53 centimeters; in the rear it is 59 centimeters. The result: Crisp proportions. Rear end: Also unmistakable are the design features of the rear end. Take the example of the rear door: It fills out practically the entire car area above the bumper. Similar to the smaller up!, the door – split 1/3 to 2/3 here – consists of a transparent material. Integrated beneath it are the taillights. Fully opened, the door offers a cargo width of 101 centimeters. The bumper itself was designed to match its counterpart at the front end. Thanks to the wide track width of 1.42 meters the outer edges of the wheels are in line with the wheel housings. The effect is that the entire vehicle width of 1.63 meters seems to consist of axles plus tires and wheels. Meanwhile, the only details that boldly jump outside of the vehicle width are the round-shaped outside mirrors, like the ones on the up! The space up! is a full-fledged four-seater. In the rear, a bench seat is implemented with two integrated child seats. To convert them from adult to child seats, the seating surfaces are simply folded over, and two shoulder supports are folded out on each side. Finished. But not only will children travel comfortably in a production version of the concept car. The reason: The cushions of the four seats – for driver, front and rear passengers – consist of an airflow foam that automatically adapts to individual anatomies. In addition, the seating position is pleasantly high, making it extremely comfortable. With the exception of the driver’s seat, all seats can also be folded and removed. If the seats are “only” folded, this creates a level cargo area with a capacity of up to 1,005 liters. With four people on board, cargo capacity up to window level height is still 220 liters. Since the low-profile engine of the space up! is located in the rear, objects with a maximum length of 2.8 meters can be stowed in a pass-through to the front cargo space. Remember: The concept van is just 3.68 meters long and thereby 15 centimeters shorter than the Fox, which is the most compact Volkswagen today. Since the car’s cockpit was conceived as a module to be applied across all models of the “New Small Family”, the cockpit unit was copied from the up! concept car presented in Frankfurt, with slight modifications. It is a cockpit with a great future. In detail, the space up! has two central displays: In the cockpit, an 8-inch monitor displays information such as vehicle speed, fuel level and range as well as momentary CO2 emissions. In the middle of the instruments a 7-inch monitor shows how future human-machine interfaces might look and operate. Here all conceivable functions are controlled via a touchscreen that – using proximity sensors – reacts to gestures as well, i.e. specific hand movements. Menuing was retooled and reorganized so that people without computer science educations would be able to operate the system. The developers intentionally separated “display” and “control” levels from one another. Always shown on the screen is a control bar with standard functions such as climate control or audio volume control. Developers packaged functions of other higher-order systems – navigation, telephone, radio, Internet, images, films, etc. – on a display level that has been referred to internally as the “main menu carousel” – a type of virtual carousel. It consists of the icons of different system functions (telephone, navigation, etc.). When the user touches the “main menu carousel” it can be rotated by touchscreen. Visually, this control is just as spectacular as it is intuitive. When the desired function appears on the main menu carousel – such as the telephone – the user just needs to move his or her hand to the display to switch to the telephone menu thanks to proximity sensor technology. It was true on the up! and it also applies to the space up!: The new type of user control is fun, easy to understand in any cultural environment and very safe. That is precisely what is typical of Volkswagen. Toward the end of this decade, the first Volkswagen customers might be able to enjoy this new generation of intuitive controls aboard the New Small Family. The development of production models has already begun…’ Source: Volkswagen of America

Volkswagen of America, Inc., CEO Stefan Jacoby today announced new executive appointments and realignment of the Volkswagen brand executive management team, taking effect January 1, 2008. Jacoby will add the title of executive vice president of the Volkswagen brand, in combination with his duties as CEO, Volkswagen of America, Inc. The executive vice president role at Volkswagen has been held by Adrian Hallmark since November of 2005. Hallmark will transfer to corporate parent Volkswagen AG in Wolfsburg, Germany where he will lead Volkswagen sales and marketing initiatives for the Asia/ Pacific region. Also announced was the appointment of Michael Lohscheller as executive vice president, chief financial officer for Volkswagen of America, Inc., reporting to Jacoby. Lohscheller transfers from corporate parent Volkswagen AG, where he was most recently director, Group Marketing and Sales Planning. He has been with Volkswagen AG since 2004, after holding various senior finance positions with Daimler and Mitsubishi Motors. In addition, Falk Beil has been named executive vice president, Service & Quality, Volkswagen of America, Inc. Reporting directly to Jacoby, he has held multiple inter-disciplinary posts since joining Volkswagen AG in 1988.Jacoby also appointed the following vice presidents, both reporting directly to him, within the Volkswagen brand, taking effect immediately. Mark Barnes has been named vice president, Customer Service. Mark has held numerous management positions at Chrysler, Hyundai and Nissan, bringing 25 years of Parts and Service experience in both national and regional operations. M. Toscan Bennett has been named vice president, Product Marketing & Strategy. He replaces David Goggins, formerly director, Product and Marketing Strategy. Bennett brings more than twenty years of automotive brand management experience at Ferrari, Chrysler and Mitsubishi. Goggins will return to Bentley Motors headquarters in Crewe, United Kingdom where he will lead Bentley global communications. "With these organizational changes, we have strengthened the enterprise to best meet the challenges of the dynamic American automotive marketplace," said Jacoby. "The Volkswagen Brand will continue on the path set by Adrian. We appreciate his efforts to build a solid platform for continued growth and profitability."

It is no secret that Porsche has been buying up stake in Volkswagen for the last year. Though a piece of legislation called the VW Law has been the only thing to prevent the sports car builder from completely take over Europe's largest automaker. Currently Porsche has a 31% stake in VW, but with news today of the European Court striking down the VW Law, many expect the company to quickly increase its stake to a controlling 51%. The VW Law itself dates back to 1960, and while a bit complicated to understand, basically stipulates that 80% shareholder approval is required to pass major decisions and regardless of how much stake a single entity holds, its voting block cannot be greater than 20%. Since the company's home state of Lower Saxony owns 20.1% of VW, it alone holds the power to influence the company's decision making. Under the VW Law, Lower Saxony has the power to block any decision that would threaten its jobs and the local economy. Thus, Porsche's desire to own a controlling stake in VW has been blocked by Lower Saxony as well as its inability to use the full force of its 31% stake in voting. Though two separate companies, Porsche and Volkswagen share a long history dating back to Dr. Ferdinand Porsche who was the designer of the Beetle, as well as the Auto Union Silver Arrow race cars. Much of the leadership at VWAG are also direct descendants of Dr. Porsche as well. Dr. Ferdinand Piech is Dr. Porsche's grandson. Though the family ties do not end there. Volkswagen and Porsche have collaborated on many projects. The Porsche 914, 924 & Cayenne were all joint developments between the two companies.