Volkswagen Touts "Up!" At Frankfurt Show

Anthony Fontanelle
September 12, 2007

Volkswagen AG unveiled last Monday its most-recent people’s car dubbed Up! at the Frankfurt Auto Show. The German automaker intends to introduce the model in India by 2010.

Martin Winterkorn, the Volkswagen CEO and Chairman, commenting on the automaker’s plans, said: “We will manufacture Up! for emerging markets like India, Russia and China.” India is an important market for us, he added.

Price-sensitive Indian customers are likely to get Up! about 40 percent cheaper compared to Europeans buyers. “The car will cost about a6,000 (Rs 3,30,000) for Indian customers while it would be sold for a10,000 euros (Rs 5,50,000) in Europe,” he told The Economic Times.

Joerg Mueller, the president of Volkswagen India, said: “The Indian market is competitive and we will fight competition through our product innovations, technology, brand and affordable pricing.”

Up! is engineered to cater to the new and small family platform. The four-seater car is about 136-inch long and 64-inch wide. It will feature a rear-wheel drive and ample luggage space under the hood. It would be powered by three-cylinder engine with direct fuel injection. The rear-engined, three-door machine, with sat-nav and an onboard computer, is still at the concept stage. That means the company is yet to take a final call on building it.

Going forward, VW of America will concentrate on four core product segments namely compact sedans, such as the Jetta; compact SUVs, like the Tiguan; mid-size sedans, like the Passat; and mid-size SUVs, such as the Touareg. The German automaker is also absorbed in improving its parts accessories and equipment such as Volkswagen tail light lens, engines, and more.

The year 2010 is beginning to look like an interesting year for small car users. Auto giants such as the Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co. and Renault AG are likely to hit the Indian roads with small car models by then. Interestingly, Tata Motors’ much-awaited Rs 1-lakh car is also likely to be available around then, divulged Car Connection. As such, fierce competition in the auto industry is expected to occur.

One of the key issues left to resolve is whether Volkswagen will utilize that facility to produce a product especially catered to the American market. The proposed facility, along with the recently-announced decision to move Volkswagen of America's headquarters to suburban Washington, D.C., underscores the dramatic changes underfoot at the huge German manufacturer, added the report.

Revitalizing the automaker’s struggling American operations will be critical for the automaker's plans to boost its worldwide sales from six million to eight million cars, trucks, and crossovers by 2010, noted Winterkorn. "We need a culture of new ideas," said Winterkorn, during a conversation at the Frankfurt Motor Show. And that, added Volkwagen's United States CEO Stefan Jacoby, is why he authorized the move from Detroit to D.C. But Jacoby's boss cautioned that "The move to Washington is just one piece in the puzzle."

Should everything falls into the right places, Winterkorn is targeting for American sales to triple over the next decade, to at least one million. On a global basis, Europe’s largest car manufacturer expects to drive up volumes by a full third, to an anticipated eight million, in 2010. To do it, the automaker is rolling out an array of new products through its various brands, which include not only Volkswagen, but Audi, Skoda, and Seat as well as the premium marques, Bentley, Lamborghini, and Bugatti.

Winterkorn, on the other hand, confirmed that VW is working on developing several new pickups, but Adrian Hallmark, second in command in the United States, quickly cautioned that there are no plans to bring a truck to the States.

Source:  Amazines.com