VW Cutting Number of Euro Powertrain Offerings in $3.4B Cost Cutting Move

Volkswagen announced plans to trim another $3.4 billion from its operating costs by 2020 during a press conference in Wolfsburg today. The automaker will be “discontinuing 25% of engine and gearbox variants across Europe,” VW chief operating officer Ralf Brandstätter told Autocar, a move that will help it to simplify and streamline its business in the region. It also plans on reducing the complexity of various trim levels and equipment packages for its cars. VW said that it will be looking at removing trim levels or model variants with “low customer demand.”

Cutting back on administrative expenses will also be part of the cost control measures. The automaker has reduced its workforce by around 5,600 employees and a further 9,600 have signed early retirement agreements.

“By 2020 we will achieve three billion euros in cost savings, and now aim for a further three billion euros by 2023,” VW board member Arno Antlitz said during the conference.

In addition to the cost control measures, VW is also hoping to increase its plant productivity by 30% by 2025.

The end goal for VW is to boost profit margins to 6 percent by 2022, which is three years earlier than it had previously hoped to achieve the goal.

At the same time, VW will sink more than 11 billion euros into various mobility-related business operations by 2023, with the bulk of that going toward electric and autonomous vehicles.

“We must force the pace of our transformation and become more efficient and agile,” Brandstätter said. “We cannot let up in our efforts and must realize further substantial improvements. What we have achieved so far is still not enough.”

a version of this article first appeared on AutoGuide

The post VW Cutting Number of Euro Powertrain Offerings in $3.4B Cost Cutting Move appeared first on VWVortex.

from VWVortex https://ift.tt/2zHNTjO
via IFTTT

Comments

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...

Volkswagen Group Records Best Ever First-Half-of-Year Sales

With 5.5 million vehicles in customer hands after the first six months of 2018, the Volkswagen Group is seeing the best performance of its history. Group deliveries increased significantly in all core regions,” said Fred Kappler, head of sales for the Group. “Our core brands recorded strong growth in the first half year.” For the year-to-date, all of Volkswagen’s brands had sales bumps. MAN, SEAT, and Skoda led the sales charge with performances 24%, 17% and 11% better than the previous year. The big sellers, too, had strong sales periods, with Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Audi, and Volkswagen sales rising 3.5%, 4.5% and 6.3% respectively. That last figure is particularly good new for the board, since Volkswagen alone sold more than 3 million vehicles in the first half of 2018. As Kappler stated, the numbers are equally good when you break sales down by region. Brazil and Russia were the most improved markets (22% and 20%, respectively), while strong sales in Europe and China (u...

Project Golf SportWagen- Intro

I’ve never really been one for SUVs and crossovers. The current offerings aren’t the body-on-frame, go-anywhere specialty tools I remember from my youth, and what they lack in capability, they also lack in on-road performance. The current crop isn’t terribly good at handling or being efficient, which in my opinion are major components of our ideal driving experience. So when it comes to space or utility, I usually look for something of the wagon variety- and it seems that I’m not alone. We hit quite a few shows around the east coast each summer, and we see modified Jetta SportWagens at nearly every event. Even amongst common consumers, these cars are highly sought-after. They don’t depreciate much, making even early Mk 5 2.5 versions expensive in comparison to other Jettas or Golfs of the same vintage. This year, Volkswagen launched their latest SportWagen, which is now billed as a Golf. In many ways, this latest SportWagen is the best yet and it has certai...

Vorderman Volkswagen

Search This Blog