SUVs and EVs: Volkswagen Outlines Future-Product Strategy
Volkswagen has been running on slim margins in the United States and beyond?further squeezed by the costs related to the diesel-emissions scandal. To increase its profitability, it’s shifting as quickly as it can toward the growing market of SUVs and crossovers. It has a lot of ground to make up. The company is ramping up some 19 SUV and crossover models globally by 2020, according to Herbert Diess, head of the Volkswagen brand. By 2020, Volkswagen’s global sales will be 40 percent SUVs and crossovers, versus its current level of less than 15 percent.
Diess pointed to the new Tiguan, which recently launched in the United States, China, and Russia, as “a very good example” of this strategy, saying, “It’s working worldwide.” The 2018 Tiguan is significantly larger than its predecessor and has a third row of seats; at the moment, it’s selling alongside the decade-old previous-generation model, now called the Tiguan Limited. Volkswagen also recently unveiled the T-Roc subcompact crossover in Europe, but, even though that segment is red hot in the U.S., VW brand bosses said the T-Roc may never be sold in this country. “There are other options that potentially fit better to the American market,” said Hinrich Woebcken, president and CEO of Volkswagen Group of America. A five-seat version of the Atlas also is possible, Woebcken said. Production of the seven-seat Atlas, in Chattanooga, is currently running at about 400 p...
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