Skip to main content

It Might Take More Than American Enthusiasm to Make This Volkswagen Truck a Reality

Volkswagen’s Atlas Tanoak concept was one of the few interesting products to emerge from last week’s New York auto show, but the Atlas-based pickup remains a one-off for now. The automaker plans to judge consumer interest before making a decision to scrap the idea or sign off on a production version. Naturally, with VW staking it’s U.S. fortunes on light trucks, the volume-seeking company would like to get as much mileage out of its Atlas architecture as possible. See the two-row Atlas Cross Sport for Exhibit B.

But does the Tanoak’s future hinge on Americans expressing an overwhelming desire for a VW truck? Not entirely.

According to Wards Auto, Volkswagen of America CEO Hinrich Woebcken’s gaze doesn’t end at the continent’s perimeter. The Tanoak’s production could hinge on foreign demand.

“We potentially would not only look at the data for demand here in the United States to get business economics together,” Woebcken said at a media roundtable last week. “Maybe then also there is the opportunity of exporting the pickup truck out of the United States and generating scale of economy out of this.”

The automaker’s Chattanooga plant, which produces the Atlas (and its future variants, if green-lit), has a potential annual production capacity of 500,000 vehicles. It isn’t using close to that amount. Currently, workers in Chattanooga build only the Atlas and dwindling Passat, with the three-row MQB platform crossover recently going on sale in the Middle East and Russia.

So, production capacity isn’t a roadblock for a potential U.S. VW truck, just its market. U.S. buyers looking for an unusual pickup might one day have overseas interest to thank for their new Tanoak, but other problems remain. In creating the Tanoak concept, VW stretched the donor Atlas’ wheelbase by 11 inches in order to craft a useable bed. This puts the Tanoak, as we know it now, dangerously close to full-size territory, Woebken said.

For marketing purposes as much as anything else, VW has to first decide what it wants the Tanoak to be: a midsize lifestyle pickup, or a brawnier, more capable full-size.

Should interest surpass VW brass’ wildest expectations, we wonder whether Chattanooga’s production of the Tanoak, Atlas, its five-seater derivative, and the Passat would alter VW’s tentative plans to utilize the plant for electric vehicles. Late last year, VW brand boss Herbert Diess said Chattanooga was the automaker’s “first choice” for production of I.D.-branded EVs.

a version of this article first appeared on The Truth About Cars

The post It Might Take More Than American Enthusiasm to Make This Volkswagen Truck a Reality appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex https://ift.tt/2q171UZ
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Project SportWagen: Going Stage 2 with APR

    When we last left you, the humble little SportWagen was fresh from the development process with our friends at AWE Tuning, sporting a new downpipe, exhaust and intake, allowing things to breathe a bit easier.  The car sounded great, but there was no getting around the fact that our wagon was still quite, well, slow.   While we realize that nothing we do to the Golf SportWagen at this point will make it a race car, we still felt compelled to do something .  To put it bluntly, we had a fever, and the only cure was more power. Flash forward a few hours, and we found ourselves at Waterfest, staring down APR’s palatial spread and the numerous tuned vehicles surrounding it.  Earlier in the year, APR had hinted to us that their 1.8 TSI files would be quite impressive, and based on what they were able to do with the 2.0 TSI found in the new GTI and our time in their Golf R, we knew it’d be worth the wait.  So with this in mind, we lined our G...
Post a Comment
Read more

Watch: The Zerouno Cruis’n USA

ItalDesign is drumming up excitement for its new supercar based around the same 5.2-liter Audi V10 that powers the R8. Naturally, it hit the road for a cruise around California last week to celebrate Monterey Car Week. There isn’t much in the way of V10 noise—which is a real shame given the sound it makes—but you do at least get a good look at the car inside and out in this video. With a body made entirely of carbon fiber and designed to be as aerodynamic and light as possible, ItalDesign figures that it will be good for a 0-60 time of just 3.2 seconds. “We put it our best skills into the production of the first car,” said Massimo Bovi, head of pre-series production, when the Zerouno was first unveiled in Geneva earlier this year. “Using some of the finest productions methods and engaging our high-skilled workers.” The car features clever aero tricks gleaned from single-seat racing, like a y-duct up front to improve downforce and turn-in. Available in a number of trim levels, the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Volkswagen Golf GTE Wins Top Honor at the 2015 Business Techies Awards

Golf GTE wins Green category in the 2015 BusinessCar Fleet Technology awards Judges praised the Golf GTE for its performance, ease of use and economy Golf GTE launched earlier this year with plug-in hybrid technology – priced from £33,755 204 PS performance combined with CO 2  emissions of just 39 g/km Volkswagen has added to its growing list of 2015 automotive industry accolades by winning the Green category in the annual BusinessCar Fleet Technology Awards – the Techies. The prestigious title was awarded to Volkswagen for the Golf GTE, an innovative plug-in hybrid that combines sporty dynamics with exceptional fuel economy and low CO 2  emissions. Now in their seventh year, the Techies are judged by both BusinessCar’s experienced editorial panel with help from TRL’s technology expert. The industry’s only technology-specific awards, the BusinessCar Techies reward the use of technology to make business car fleet operations easier, cheaper, cleaner, safer and more straig...
Post a Comment
Read more