The latest news from the VW Group in the last month or so are quite worrying. It almost looks like much of what was gained over the last 20 years will be reverted or endangered… in only a few months. Sales were up this year and results in general were improving. In the last years, Pischetrieder’s team and project had gained the credibility from all. Still a lot of work to be done to be where the company should be, but things were on track.

Suddenly, and sadly, Piech is back in the picture and… who knows what will happen in the end, but it seems that, for a start, the groups of brands will be reorganised by ‘volume’ and ‘prestige’. The new CEO, Martin Winterkorn seems to be planning to revert many of the positive decisions that Bernd Pischetsrieder took. The latest rumours are that even SEAT is not in Winterkorn’s future plans, and could be up for sale. Apparently Wolfgang Bernhard is opposed to this. But then again, he may soon leave VW (to go back to DCX). Bernhard has demonstrated to be not just an effective cost cutter, but also to have a very fine sense for products and marketing (Chrysler 300C, new VW Scirocco, VW Tiguan…).

If Bernhard leaves VW, SEAT is sold out of the group, and other news of late are confirmed, the future for the VW group has a much worse prospect to recover as a leading company. For the last 20 years (since about the time when SEAT was bought by VW) the Group is the leader automotive group in Europe; the VW that Winterkorn (Piech?) seems to be designing would not take long to lose this position and become number two –or less- in Europe. And these are rumours even before Winterkorn starts his job as the new CEO. As an fan of the company, let’s hope these rumours prove to be wrong and things start getting back of track.

How do you tell your customers “we got it wrong” without telling them “you bought the wrong car”. Well you stretch the Altea a little, badge it XL and call it a day. Alternatively you remodel the back of the Toledo, name it Altea XL and call it a day. Both ways, you claim that the Toldeo will not be discontinued, only that nobody will buy it anylonger…

Why the XL is restricted to only five seats is a secret that VW and Seat share… MMMhhh, ok, Seat says it’s because the brand is sporty and obviously a sevenseater is not. You see, two foldable seats add a lot of weight to the back and therefore completely compromise the handling. And just imagine two fat toddlers in the back seats, even an ESP would struggle then.

technorati tags:SEAT, SEAT Altea XL, SEAT Toledo, Altea XL, Toledo

Blogged with Flock