Fair warning: This is going to be another one of those Morning Dumps that centers around a common theme, and that theme is China and Germany. Germany is dealing with a massive financial headache, mostly of its own making, and it looks like it’ll directly impact Volkswagen the most.
The existential problem that Volkswagen is facing is making a lot of news, and there’s a lot of talk about the what, but I think the why is important. And if we’re going to bookend the why I think we need to look at two generations of cars: the Piech-era masterpieces that represent the pinnacle of a certain kind of engineering — and the Volkswagen ID.Buzz.
Along the way, we’ll learn about how many electric cars China is selling, how much Volkswagen is planning to write off as it looks to close plants in Germany, and how much angst the company might face as it renegotiates its labor deal in the United States as it copes with the unionization of its big American facility.
I keep debating whether or not we should start at the beginning or the end, but I think I’ll start at the end and work my way backward. The thesis here is that Volkswagen misunderstood the future so fundamentally that it made a series of bad bets, all of which are playing out in the present.
China Becomes First Country To Sell A Million Electric Cars
For all the EV-doomerism in the United States, electric car sales are increasing year-over-year globally. China, in particular, is seeing its sales of electric cars rapidly expand, and now the country has set a new record by becoming the first market to sell over a million electric cars in one month this August. By comparison, there were about 1.4 million cars of any kind sold in the United States in the same month. (Of course, China has over four times the U.S.’ population, but the U.S. likely has more car buyers per capita).
This data is from RhoMotion, which states that the 1 million mark is an increase of 33% year-over-year (January to August), though that’s not quite as strong as plug-in hybrid sales, which grew by 74%.
That’s a big deal. China is the biggest and most advanced car market in the world. It is also the most important to German automakers.
Here’s a quote from Ola Källenius, the Chairman of the Board of Mercedes-Benz Group AG:
China is our most important market and a crucial technology hub for the global automotive industry. China is also a trailblazer for technological innovations and future trends. That’s why we continue to invest in China, expand our R&D and industrial footprint and accelerate the transformation towards electrification, digitalisation, and carbon neutrality.
There is an argument to be made that Mercedes, more than any other German automaker, is the least exposed to the problems of Europe and Germany. Why? Volkswagen is a family dynasty company with a component of state ownership and some public investment. BMW is a family dynasty with public investment. Mercedes, on the other hand, has a diverse investor base (including Geely owner Li Shufu, who is the biggest shareholder of parent company Daimler at about 10%).
Volkswagen is, of course, heavily involved with China, and was long one of the biggest brands there, selling cars via local partnerships. There’s a great interview with the economist Adam Tooze as part of a recent Odd Lots episode, and Tooze summarizes it this way:
I saw this when I was visiting because I speak German and I’m known there, I bump into German business people when I’m in China and they will tell you flat out that they have to be there for two reasons fundamentally because it’s a big market and it’s rapidly growing —If you’re in, say, heavy chemicals, if you’re BASF, you can’t not be there. But the other reason why a VW, for instance, can’t not be there is that, if you are actually going to compete in the global market in the next generation of vehicles, motor vehicles, you can’t do what the US firms are doing, which is basically retreating behind national protectionism.
You have to at least try and stay with the Chinese manufacturers in the Chinese market. And so, VW is doubling down on its investments in China because they just see it as the market. It’s already the biggest but it’s also now at the qualitative, at the technological frontier. And unless you can compete there, and they’ve been having a brutal period for the last 18 months, you’re basically done, you are basically gonna be a legacy manufacturer of sophisticated internal combustion engines, not of the new cutting edge.
Volkswagen is not at the cutting edge in terms of software and not really there in terms of electric cars, either. In a market that is selling a million electric cars a month, Volkswagen sold fewer than 50,000 in the first six months of the year in China.
Is The I.D. Buzz Already A Failure?
We are finally getting the VW ID.Buzz van after waiting for about eight years (or even longer if you ask Jason). It’s not fully for sale in the United States, but it’s finally hitting the market in other countries. Stylistically, it’s a winner. I know plenty of people excited about how the ID.Buzz looks. From a performance standpoint? It’s not amazing, but it’s not terrible. It’s average. It is, on the other hand, not particularly cheap with a starting price of about $61k delivered.
Here’s what Jason had to say in his review, which we published almost exactly two years ago:
I drove the Buzz for the better part of a day all over Copenhagen and with a quick jaunt into Sweden. The seating position is great, the visibility is good, the driving controls are where you expect them, and the overall driving sensation is – and I mean this in a positive way, strangely – forgettable. Maybe the only surprising thing is that for such a tall vehicle, it’s not top-heavy, because all the weight is as low as possible, so in that context, maybe there’s a bit of a surprise.
But this is more a car about traveling than driving, if that makes sense. It’s a vehicle about the journey you’re making, the people you’re making it with, and the places you see through all those windows. It’s not about the physical act of how the car reacts to you and the road, as long as it does what it’s supposed to do, without making a big fuss.
The problem is that, in the two years since that review, the price of the seven-seat Tesla Model Y, which was hovering around $60,000 at the time, has dropped to under $40,000 with tax credits. Is a Model Y cooler than an ID.Buzz? No, but it’s much cheaper and otherwise superior in most ways.
And while it’s too early to call the ID.Buzz a failure in the United States, it hasn’t been as much of a hit as Volkswagen had hoped according to Germany’s Manager Magazine:
[T]here is one flaw: people may turn their heads when an ID. Buzz buzzes past them. But buy the car? Better not. The Buzz is expensive and not really practical.
VW delivered a mere 29,000 ID. Buzz vehicles worldwide in 2023. The target was double that. Things aren’t going well in 2024 either. 14,600 units were sold in the first half of the year, 20 percent below expectations that had already been scaled down. A flop in the early stages, when enthusiasm is generally at its highest. Bust, not buzz. Things were supposed to take off rapidly this year. The plan was to sell 130,000 electric vans in 2025, and perhaps build the Buzz in the USA and even China later
That’s ok, surely Volkswagen has invested heavily in hybrids or something else to help it transition to electric cars in this uncertain environment. Right? Right…?
[Ed Note: Back in late 2018, Volkswagen invited me to Dresden, Germany to show me its then-new electric vehicle platform, the Modular Electric Drive Matrix, or MEB. Everyone was excited for the future, and MEB was going to take VW there. It was a huge investment, with $1.4 billion earmarked towards the revised Zwickau plant in Germany, and even more going towards EV development. At least to me at the time, it seemed VW was all-in on EVs. -DT].
Volkswagen Has ‘No Plan B’ Other Than To Cut Capacity
Analysts at brokerage firm Jefferies spent some time palling around with Volkswagen execs in North America on a trip and the report back, which was sent as a note to its clients, is quite bleak.
“The rationale to re-size VW’s namesake (brand) is not new but management’s sense of urgency and determination to tackle excess capacity and spending patterns both are,” Jefferies analysts wrote in the note.
“Three days on the road in North America with management gave us conviction that there is no plan B that would rule out capacity reduction,” they said, adding decisions could lead to provisions of 3 to 4 billion euros in the fourth quarter.
The closing of plants in Germany is a big deal, especially in light of the recent political victories by the far right in parts of the country that used to be East Germany. Volkswagen is also in the midst of having to negotiate a new contract with workers in the United States.
As reported in Automotive News, that’s likely to be a big fight:
Profit-sharing, cost-of-living adjustments, retirement security, affordable health care and the elimination of tiered wages appear to be the UAW’s priorities with VW. Smith said there are 800 demands on the table, without specifying.
“You’ve seen a certain kind of battle, and you’ve seen the kind of fight Volkswagen can mount,” Browning said. “Make no mistake, that fight is coming. It’s going to take everything we’ve got. The whole thing about getting a union is to get that union contract that you deserve.”
How did Volkswagen get here?
The Volkswagen Phaeton, XL1, Bugatti Veyron And The Problem Of Ferdinand Piech
The video above from Jason Camissa over at Hagerty calls Ferdinand Piech, of Volkswagen, the most important car person you’ve never heard of. That’s a bit of hyperbole and, if you read this website, you certainly know of him because he’s responsible for so many of the cars that our own Mercedes Streeter keeps buying and regretting.
Piech is the hero of the story though, as Camissa very rightly points out at the end, everything he created for Volkswagen was of a certain era that really no longer exists. Even worse, his term ended with Dieselgate, a problem that likely stemmed from Piech’s insistence on diesel technology that ultimately didn’t work as promised and could only be promoted via cheating.
Again, this isn’t particularly controversial stuff, and if you read “Faster, Higher, Farther: How One of the World’s Largest Automakers Committed a Massive and Stunning Fraud: The Volkswagen Scandal” you’ll see that journalist and author Jack Ewing basically makes that case.
I think the deeper case to be made is that Volkswagen, like other German companies, invested billions of dollars in China and was happy to sell both cars and the equipment/know-how to make cars. As Tooze also pointed out in that Odd Lots episode above, Germany also benefited from the China Shock that hit the American Rust Belt so hard:
China would produce, with German equipment, the cheap manufactured goods that American consumers would buy. Of course, American consumers also bought high-end German exports directly, as did the Chinese upper middle class. But the direct link was that American aggregate demand excess provided a market for both German and Chinese exports with Chinese industrialization providing a market for German manufactured goods.
Doing so made Volkswagen and other German companies rich and profitable, and that money was spent in ways that were exciting for car fans but terrible for the future. This period of building cheap things in China using German equipment was also the period when Piech pursued cars like the Phaeton, the Bugatti Veyron, and the Volkswagen XL-1. These cars were designed to show that Volkswagen could build an advanced gas-powered luxury car, the fastest gas-powered car in the world, and a diesel car that barely needs any fuel.
Fast forward to the present, and that’s not what anyone particularly wants. The most popular car sold in America over $100,000 is the Cybertruck, Bugatti was turned over to a Croatian guy who became famous for making electric cars, and diesel is now a bad word in Europe.
What Volkswagen should have been doing was making cheap electric cars and learning to make hybrids but, in fact, the whole concept of clean diesel was a reaction to the existence of hybrids. As Ewing writes in his book:
Positioning Volkswagen as a car for environmentally conscious drivers seemed like a clever strategy from many angles. It provided a way to attack archrival Toyota, whose hybrid Prius had become a hit and shown that people would buy a car that lent its owners a green halo. Volkswagen was not in a position to offer competing hybrids, because it has been slow to develop any. But Volkswagen was already a leader in diesel. In the minds of the engineers in Wolfsburg, diesel was the superior technology, anyway. Volkswagen Passats, Jettas, and Beetles were sportier and more fashionable than the homely Prius.
Volkswagen became obsessed with proving they could out-engineer their rivals, while having too much hubris to believe that engineers in America at places like Tesla, and in China, at places like BYD, could ever truly match them.
This hubris has cost them a lot.
There is a new generation of leaders at Volkswagen and they may be the ones to get the company out of this mess. The brands are strong, the engineers are still some of the best in the world, and there’s still time. But it’s going to be a tough transition and, probably, an avoidable one. The company is so far behind.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
It’s David Hasselhoff performing at the Berlin Wall on New Year’s Eve in 1989. Aren’t we all “Looking For Freedom”?
The Big Question
Am I wrong? Where did Volkswagen go wrong? How does it fix itself?
This post contains an Amazon affiliate link to the book I referenced, which is a really good book. Considering buying the book and we may get a small commission.
My friend was a mechanic at a VW dealership when the Phaeton came out.
On of VW’s requirement was to have a loaner Phaeton available for Phaeton owners who were having service done. The catch? That loaner had to be bought as the service loaner and not a showroom test drive car.
Also, the dealership was to have a minimum of one showroom/test drive car and another in stock at all times.
A hard no for most dealers here, so they never offered the Phaeton.
I was not directly involved, but I worked for a company whose client was Electrify America.
It was horribly run, mismanaged, self-defeating, just plain bad. Minor features being delayed months. Failure to achieve core functionality our teams could have built in three months, if permitted.
There were so many horror stories coming out of that project so consistently, I legitimately wonder if EA was an act of malicious compliance intended to “prove” electric vehicles and the attendant infrastructure could never work.
Not surprising given EA was born out of the diesel saga, and was basically something they were mandated to do as part of the settlement agreement. I suppose they could have genuinely supported it but it’s hard to imagine that sort of cultural change happening overnight.
I believe the remedy to VW’s woes, much like the remedy for most auto manufacturers’ woes, is the same: build a cheap, fuel efficient (whether that’s gas, hybrid, or electric), reliable car and flood the market with them. I understand it’s tough to compete with China on that front, but there’s certainly something to be said about non-Chinese consumers’ willingness to buy a slightly more expensive cheap car from a domestic manufacturer over the cheapest Chinese car. At least in the west, that would buy them some market share and pad their books while they prepare for the future.
“build a cheap, fuel efficient (whether that’s gas, hybrid, or electric), reliable car and flood the market with them”
That’s essentially what Tesla is doing with the Model 3 and Model Y. And you might argue that the 3/Y are not cheap… but they are cheap for BEVs
I can only imagine John Muir looking down at the IDBuzz and saying, “Screw that: I ain’t writing THAT manual!”
It has been over 35 years since I owned an air-cooled Beetle, but that manual is seared into my memory.
It’s literally the name: Peoples’ Car.
They went from producing sensible, cheap, durable, and reliable automobiles to producing automobiles that are complex, expensive, weak, and unreliable.
Make Peoples’ Cars again
You know not every car has to have a heated steering wheel, electric seats, etc.
Just make the cars work and work well for cheap. There are a ton of places where they could cut costs and in so doing offer a better product for less.
That being said the high cost of labor is going to make all their cars more expensive.
Volkswagen not only has the physical and monetary power to pull themselves out of the hole they dug themselves, but they also have the political might in Germany and the rest of the EU as well.
I remember when VW had to restart e-Golf production after the sales they thought would translate to their ID.3 didn’t and the people still wanted an e-Golf.
Make sensible cars for reasonable prices, make electric variants of those same cars, profit..l.
Legacy manufacturers feel like they have to sell premium and near-premium because of their intrinsic labor costs. That has some perverse side effects. First, their marketing convinces the public that they must have all the size and features which ultimately causes consumer financial stress and vehicle bloat. Second, it leaves a huge part of the market for competitors to exploit (first VW, then Japanese, then Korean, and now Chinese). Those competitors build brand loyalty, move upmarket and eat your lunch.
Making car interiors simpler means less hours spent per car assembling them which means cheaper labor costs per vehicle.
In the US at least vehicle bloat is mostly due to the Footprint rule tbh.
As someone in a cold weather country, every car does need a heated steering wheel.
Honestly, VW’s problem isn’t an excess of equipment. People generally don’t want cheap, and the stripper models don’t sell, so cutting heated elements isn’t going to move the needle. Their problem is that they have a reputation for being complicated and difficult to fix. Hell, I’ve heard VW ads where they’ve been going “our cars actually aren’t expensive to run! Come in and we’ll show you how we are more reliable than ever!”
Reputations are hard earned and easily lost, and VW’s fighting against a bad reputation more than anything. They’re going to be better served by putting down huge warranties (and cars that don’t need them) than they will by cutting features.
Would you settle for no capacive controls & a pair of gloves?
No. There is simply no comparison, I will never buy another daily driver without one.
As it turns out, no. A significant factor in my recent purchase was that I could get a heated steering wheel on a reasonably-priced trim level.
What about a heated steering wheel that won’t turn off and gets so hot that the steering wheel becomes too hot to hold?
Because VW had that problem with their US ID.4s
They could make a heated steering wheel cover and heated seat covers, and avoid having to stock 2+ different seats and 2+ different steering wheels.
Or just only make heated steering wheels and heated seats. Then you’re only stocking one seat and wheel, plus they’re the ones people want – and you’re not tooling up for two lines of accessories. Sometimes simplifying production means going with the better option.
Besides, glitchy electronics and time bomb engines are the problem with VW, not heating elements. People don’t think they’re not too expensive to buy, people think they’re too expensive to own.
“As someone in a cold weather country, every car does need a heated steering wheel.”
I live in Canada and I disagree with that statement. If it’s cold, wear some gloves!!!
I am sorry that you haven’t felt the light.
Gloves on their own are not even in the same universe of comfort as a heated wheel. Even in -40 a heated wheel is far, far superior to just gloves.
I know part of the whole series today was reference to the effect of the past upmarket push, but I don’t think some people here have seen the MSRPs on mainstream/volume VW models lately, pricing isn’t really their issue. I think every one (in the US at least) is thousands less than the equivalent Honda. Granted, Hondas tend to be particularly pricey lately, but they are the same price or less than a comparable Mazda even; a Jetta or Taos even undercuts a Hyundai Elantra or Kona by a few hundred. And every model on VW’s site lists lower running costs as a specific highlight as you said.
An aging lineup doesn’t help, the newest products in the last 4 years are the divisive Mk8 GTI, the Taos that entered a quickly crowding segment, and the EVs that you’re only going to look at if you’re interested in an EV. The Tiguan and Atlas have redesigns upcoming, but even GM turned around full redesigns of their crossovers in less time.
About the ID Buzz:
“the overall driving sensation is – and I mean this in a positive way, strangely – forgettable.”
Sometimes my sister’s meticulously restored 21 window bus is memorably terrifying, so I thing that’s an advance.
Piech‘s career at Porsche before all the family members were pushed out, arguably on account of him, and the Porsche /Piech family almost taking control of VW is quite a story in itself.
I met him once at a Rennsport Reunion when he was showing off the 16 cylinder 917 and the vibe was distinctly intimidating.
VW is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
We get very attached to CEOs in business to the point where it’s hard to separate them from their business in some cases. Henry Ford. Steve Jobs. Ferdinand Piech. Elon Musk.
In a certain sense, we idolize the ones who were daring and pushed the boundaries of possible, even if they were dead ends, technologically speaking. In retrospect, Piech pushed his vision of the automobile probably far beyond what VW should have, incinerating wads of the company’s cash in the process of doing so. Great CEOs can push boundaries into the next realm of customer taste if they have the knack (think Steve Jobs and Apple), but they can also cause intractable damage when left to run amok.
In another sense, they’re just peddling consumer products. At the end of the day, regular people aren’t going to buy junk much more than once or twice no matter how much the edge is pushed in a technology realm if it doesn’t work well or is affordable. For all Toyota’s efforts to woo the enthusiast/magazine crowd, it makes its money on untold thousands of well-built Corollas, Camrys and RAV4s sold to people who just want a transportation appliance that gets decent fuel economy.
Prestige brands can resist such abuse for longer due to their owners’ financial willingness to tolerate reliability flaws at the altar of prestige branding. Taint the branding enough, and eventually it’ll burn one. Not sure the Germans can keep going downmarket with luxury and keep the prestige up.
May you live in interesting times, goes the curse. It’ll be interesting for VW.
VW is doing poorly because of decades of making unreliable trash overcomplicated for the sake of bragging about overcomplicating things to a public that largely DGAF as long as it works reliably (which it didn’t), selling for more money than competitors at what are still likely lower margins, and delivering a mediocre experience in return. I think it was around the time I had to replace a couple of bulbs on a year-old new Beetle—tail light with a laughably stupid process and a headlight with a plastic connector that literally crumbled in my hand like it had been exposed to UV for a decade—that I was first amazed that they weren’t failing.
How many of China’s million EVs were just manufactured to grab government subsidies, and are now just sitting, rotting in a field somewhere, one of hundreds or even thousands identical and never-actually-purchased-and-driven cars?
They aren’t going to mention that since it would bite the hand that feeds.
VW is in trouble because they got too far away from who they are. They succumbed to the corporate ego, and instead of letting the Porsche branch do sports cars and Audi do luxury, the decided that VW could do everything. A Phaeton as good as an S-Class. A Tuareg as good as a Land Cruiser. An Eos as good as a Miata. But it’s not GM, and it’s not even Ford or Toyota. They even turned the humble Golf into a bloated, overstuffed bank-buster with the “R”.
VW does best when it sticks to what it does best- plain Golf. VW should sell only the Golf, in ICE, Diesel, hybrid, and full EV versions. They should be cheap, simple, and above all, reliable. It was settled long ago that the Golf form factor is the most efficient, practical automotive paradigm. Why move away from that just to pretend you live in St. Tropez?
You can’t just do “Golf”. There’s little or no profit in small cars, no matter how much volume you push.
But they do need to simplify in this age. Advertising is no longer the monolithic market force that lets you change model names every few years.
VW should be Golf, Jetta, Passat. Hatchback, sedan, wagon, SUV and pickup versions of each. Optionally, the pickup and SUV could have a set of shared names. Add on a minivan and a larger transport van, and you’re set. Hybrid and electric versions of all these should still be named the same as the combustion versions.
That should be their core branding.
Hey, there’s little to no profit economy class airline tickets either, but that’s the overwhelming majority of airline seats sold. If the manufacturers want to abandon the lower end of the market as unprofitable, fine. But that doesn’t mean that people will buy a new car that gives the manufacturer the margins they want.
I confess that I looked hard at VW when buying a used car in Europe — my mother-in-law’s Polo is actually kinda fun. At the end, the purchase price for Wolfsburg did not compare well with Hiroshima, and the Japanese car had a lot more non-enshittening features and a better maintenance prognosis.
And that’s the generation before the touchscreen fiasco.
I own a Golf. It is SMALL. My 8-year-old is going to outgrow the backseat in the next year or so.
In any case, Americans want CUVs and SUVs, not hatchbacks.
Why anyone would buy the VW when they could get a Caddy XT6 for $10k less is beyond me.
Hippie nostalgia is cool, I suppose, but not at somewhere close to $70k. It ain’t that cool, and the truck ain’t that good.
I honestly can’t imagine buying the Cadillac. Not even a hybrid option – let alone an EV – and I’m not going to buy something that brings no electrification to the table.
I get that, in a way. To each their own and all that. But, are you saying that if you HAD to choose today, under the threat of something terrible happening to your newly cemented sidewalk, you’d take the VW over the Caddy?
Between those two options? Yeah, I don’t think the Cadillac has anything going for it.
But I wouldn’t buy either of them if other options were available.
Well, that wasn’t the question, lol.
Either way, I’m no shill but to me the choice is obvious in this specific case…
https://www.cadillac.com/suvs/xt6
Of the litany of choices in the $50-70k price range, why the XT6?
Aside from the fact that I will always be a Caddy fan (not stan), it was just the first one to come to mind that beats out the VW in features/comfort/reliability for far less money.
I’m sure the Koreans (one example) hold up as well, if not better, but I just picked the XT6 as a train of thought thing.
I know that the Lyriq got a ton of lukewarm reviews and I haven’t looked at the “2025 update” as I don’t want a full EV, but I’d have to think it would hold its own specifically against the VW.
To be fair: I also get a Family Legacy discount w/GM, so that is always my first look. If I were to get an SUV, it’d be the Escalade if I went big, but for sure I’d go with a GMC for the looks over the Caddy “mid-size” all day long.
Honestly though, the id.buzz is a lot closer to what I want in my next car – I’m not buying anything gas-exclusive, and the VW has an element of fun to it. I just don’t see anything about the Cadillac I even like.
Of those two options, if those were the only two options, I’d take the VW without hesitation. But my next car will probably be an Ioniq 6.
Lol what? I think that’s more of a slight to cadilliq having to price their cars at discount rates to move the silly things.
The xt6 looks nice, but it’s just a fancied-up traverse, which isn’t that good to begin with. It’s also one of the worst options in its own segment, and does little other than illustrating how overpriced it is compared to an enclave or Acadia for folks who think a GM brand really makes a difference.
You may not believe it, but you’re definitely a caddy “stan” and a shill, per your own terminology. It’s OK to drink a different “kool-aid” than your family. It may even be encouraged.
None of the gm and vw options are appealing, nor good buys. Add nissan/Infiniti and Subaru to that list, while we’re at it.
Same Ewing quote in two places? Seems like the 2nd was supposed to be something else?
Good catch; fixed!
“Volkswagen Has ‘No Plan B’ Other Than To Cut Capacity”
I keep seeing Pink Floyd’s “Animals” album cover in that picture except with circling vultures instead of a flying pig.
And yet the Pig remains a relevant reference considering today’s dump.
OK, Pig AND vultures then.
Tomato, Tomatto perhaps.
But who is that Uncle Fester looking dude in the lead photo? /s
Hey now, Fester got to electrification much faster than VW. Have you seen what the man can do with a light bulb?
Was waiting for this.
I hope this is a wakeup for VW and by association, Audi, BMW and Mercedes. I have always found all of their products to be overengineered, and fragile. They missed the obvious requirement of a supporting EV infrastructure to support sales of EVs outside of the command economy of China. They also tied their success to growth in China which was going to be snatched away once the local manufacturers became self sustaining. VW and by association Germany IMO ignored the experience of Japan, Korea and history.
You said this well. Take a star please.
I would like the buzz a whole lot more if it were available in ICE and Hybrid as well. I doubt I will ever buy a full electric VW anytime soon, but I could get behind a known reliable alternative that costs half the price.
How to fix VW:
Remove features and gee whiz options to reduce the cost, and make them actually the people’s car. That stupid van should not cost 60k, it should cost 35k. The Golf/GTI should start super cheap as well, roll up windows cheap, double DIN stereo with an off the shelf reciever that people can choose from, basic am/fm/bluetooth, or carplay.
Right now I feel like they have too many vehicles, I couldn’t possibly name them all, and they’re all trying to be premium, which is dumb. They should try to be affordable, basic, sparse, and minimalistic (use bauhaus style industrial design, less is more).
I don’t know what else to say, other than China is an absolute monster. I’ve worked with them a lot in my career, and they produce things far, far far cheaper than most developed countries because they don’t play by the same rules. Osha does not exist, child labor laws do not exist, the EPA does not exist… it’s just the wild wild west over there.
“The Golf/GTI should start super cheap as well, roll up windows cheap, double DIN stereo with an off the shelf reciever that people can choose from, basic am/fm/bluetooth, or carplay.”
So turn the Golf into the new Chevy Spark?
Yes, but slightly bigger?
There are very few who do business with China who don’t feel a burning sensation in the butt at some point or another.
And a feeling of regret.
To quote a Chinese supplier about unsafe work conditions in China: “there’s always another Chinaman”
Harsh.
Dude, Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature
We’re not talking about the guys who built the f-ing railroad here.
I’m talking about drawing a line in the sand, Dude. Across this line you do not!…..
Apparently you never saw David Carradine in the epic western Kung Fu? “Filthy Chinaman” was his given Christian name when he was accidentally baptized while taking a bath in a river. I remember that episode well.
You know, the super tall Chinese dude who traveled the Wild West kicking redneck’s asses, while teaching the way of the grasshopper to all.
And eating every pet he could catch.
What? Too soon?
Before they discontinued it, the Golf was a pretty good deal. I’ve had a few. In Canada, a base Golf started in the low 20’s $CDN and it was not a poverty spec car. For argument’s sake, sure add a few grand for inflation now, but you’d still end up with a mostly affordable vehicle that’s quite nice to drive. The proof, in Canada at least, is how many you see on the road. They were easily as popular as the compact competition. Sure their reliability reputation, wasn’t great, but they really were not that bad. Especially the simpler base models. Again speaking from ownership experience.
I’m convinced VW just doesn’t want to do it right. The engineering management is probably just too stubborn and the ownership structure is not really conducive to making money. They just have to avoid losing money, or the appearance of losing money.
I had an e-Golf for several years. It was a really good car, which honestly kind of surprised me. Its only major flaw was its 24 kWh battery, which gave it a practical range of maybe 60 miles. Later ones had bigger batteries, but they never made one with enough range to be someone’s main vehicle.
Ah the Germans. Such comforting people.
If I read this statement about Mercedes or BMW, I might disagree, but at least I could understand it. Coming from VW, it’s so laughably out of touch that it makes me root even harder for their demise.
The only VW I’ve had the misfortune to own had interior quality that would make 80s GM blush, coupled with reliability that would not be out of place in the 1970s.
What recent successes do they have to be proud of?
I did own a 2.5 5 cylinder passat from 2013. it was actually quite comfortable, got great fuel economy, had adequate HP, but was wholly average. the TSI that replaced the 2.5 NA had lots of turbo issues, the VR6 has a reputation for issues. many of the interior parts have a reputation for breaking easily. Basically the company really has had to come back form one bad impression after another and they have not been able to in many cases. Audi cars and SUV’s look killer, but almost all have a reputation for impossible to afford maintenance and finicky designs.
“What recent successes do they have to be proud of?”
My most recent VW experience was the MT Blumotion Polo I rented a decade or so ago. I rather enjoyed that car. A Polo GTI would have been a hoot.
Too bad those never made it to the US.
I remember a new Golf in rented in 1988 in Europe that felt so solid. It was far tighter on the road, and seemed so much more well-put together than pretty much any other car I’d driven to that point. It was noticeably better than the Japanese and domestic cars of the day in materials, fit and finish.
It’s pretty obvious that VW is nowhere near the powerhouse that they used to be. But there is no going back. They need to find a way forward, while remaining connected to the good parts of their legacy.
I resemble the comment about the Buzz and 7 seat Model Y. I wanted the Buzz but ended up buying a 7 seat Model Y when the price dropped. No regrets for my use case. The dogs are plenty happy in the MY’s third row and it tows my little camper well.
The problem with the id Buzz is that, at the end of the day, it’s a VW EV. So you’ve got a really cool looking package around some of the worst ergonomic decisions yet made in a modern vehicle.
And their abysmal software…
So is Piech also to blame for the Electrify America fiasco too?
pretty much since it is a hell spawn of dieselgate
It could have been the silver lining. It was INTENDED to be the silver lining. But instead VW squandered that opportunity to rebuild their reputation because *reasons*.
The “reasons” were that they didn’t really want to do it.
Funny memory here. I recall once being in the showroom of a VW dealer here in Denver asking the sales manager when VW will come out with a hybrid vehicle because my B5 passat was a dog. He basically said hahah, never. They will have diesels instead. You know what was in the showroom? A phaeton they couldn’t sell and a first gen touareg. two years later and there was a hybrid touareg and a hybrid jetta for sale, though I think only in CA and a couple other markets.
Sales people are generally idiots and don’t know about anything being developed for the future.
That’s because they’re instructed to “sell what you can see, don’t see what you can sell” In other words, the only thing you have to talk about is what’s on the lot, the other might as well not exist – even in your mind.
Too much teasing of the replacement to the iconic microbus for far too long makes people: A – not believe you when you say you are releasing a product finally, or, B – not care anymore because they’ve moved on. I fall into both camps. Tesla makes the same mistakes too (re: cybertruck, affordable car, taxi, etc.) but currently still enjoys an irrational base of fanbois that promote their garbage and their stock.
Yeah, and microbus was built to appeal to the nostalgia of people who are aging out now. Sure, there’s plenty of nostalgia for a time from people who didn’t live through it, but at this point, the “Boomer” generation is becoming more of a pejorative to the younger ones than a misty-eyed regret of having been born too late to experience it that it once had seemed for many.
The idea that Volkswagen has gone from competing with Toyota for the title of “largest automotive manufacturer in the world” to being on the verge of collapse in such a relatively short period of time is whiplash inducing. They have so lost the plot.
I think we, too often, throw around bombastic statements of “verge of collapse” to get a reaction.
Even if VW sales magically shrunk to half its size: it would still exceed the vehicle delivers of Ford. And would still retain it’s position as the top German brand for quantity of vehicles.
I mean, if they did nothing except shrunk sales, then I’m sure the banks would take over.
I mean, their 2023 profits were $20 billion, up some 13% over 2022, and was $6.1 billion for the first 6 months of 2024, which is down like 2.4% over ’23, but obviously far from a total collapse.
They’re also sitting on $83.4 billion in available cash on hand and have about $195 billion in equity, so I think “verge of collapse” is slightly hyperbolic, they’re nowhere near close to being a bailout case
It is ironic that the ID Buzz seems to have none. When it was announced 6 years ago, people were excited, but now that’s just a distant memory. Kind of like the Supra that Toyota teased forever. When it finally came out most people just shrugged their shoulders.
Or the fifth generation Camaro in 2010. They teased it for so long that the actual introduction was anticlimactic.
I’d go with something beyond merely anticlimactic. That gun slot greenhouse was a major design miscue in my opinion. That thing looked like Tooned Hot Wheels car, and I don’t mean that in a good way.
It’s was considered in vogue considering the LX/LC cars had been doing that for a while by that point.
At least the Supra is something you’d want to drive. 200ish miles of range on a minivan is horrible. Load it up with 6-7 people during the winter and the range will probably show 160ish max. The heat pump is optional too…