By 2018, Volkswagen hopes to become the world’s largest automaker but in order to do so, they will have to pay more attention to the United States. While the German company has been doing stellar in other parts of the world, especially considering its recent acquisition of Porsche, sales in North America have been less than amazing. Despite recently stong numbers for award-winning vehicles such as the Chattanooga built Passat, the U.S. is still one of the smallest contributing markets for the automotive group. For that reason, the automaker will soon begin pushing Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche vehicles even harder in America.
With a goal set for five years into the future, Volkswagen is looking to boost annual sales to the 10 million mark worldwide. In order to accomplish that task, the company hopes to have U.S. numbers at 1 million annually with 800,000 being VWs and the rest Audis. According to Automotive News.com, the North American market only accounts for 5 percent of VW Group’s sales and the brand is currently on its way to reach 575,000 units sold by the end of the year. Needless to say, there is a lot of work to be done and most of it will be taken care of by the Tennessee assembly plant and dealerships.
The Chattanooga plant will soon see an increase in production capacity all the way up to 500,000 units annually. To send off as many new VWs as the plant can build, U.S. dealers will be told to act less like an upscale, low-volume showcase and more like a lot from Japanese competition. With that in mind, don’t be surprised to see numerous incentives for the all-new Volkswagen Passat as the sedan might just have what it takes to get the job done.
Source: AutomotiveNews.com
