VW’s New Car Onslaught Unlikely to Continue

As Volkswagen continues its mission to reduce costs, the flow of new cars will have to slow down.

With the bill for its diesel emissions scandal still rising, VW has been eager to reduce operating costs to increase profit. They did a good job of it this year, reducing them by 300 million Euros, but that was a one time deal that the company won’t be able to repeat year on year.

With 120,000 jobs being phased out and Brand Boss Herbert Diess already unpopular with the Union, VW will have to turn to other areas to cut costs. That means that the flow of new cars will have to slow according to VW’s head of finance, Arno Antlitz.

“It’s natural that when you launch a product offensive as well as all these new technologies such as developing the MEB [electric vehicle architecture], it’s probably not possible to lower fixed costs further year over year,” Antlitz told Automotive News in Geneva.

With five renewed models and five brand new models hitting the markets around the globe this year, it only stands to reason that fewer new cars will be made. That said, VW’s North American wing still wants to release two new cars per year, every year until 2020. What follows, though, remains to be seen.

[source: Automotive News]

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