Starting the beginning of this year rumors about a pick-up from Volkswagen started to circulate all over the internet. Among other markets the "Robust" was supposed to also come on the European market. But due to high oil prices, Volkswagen announced this pick-up will not come to the European market.
A Volkswagen spokesman said an analysis showed there is no sufficient market for such a vehicle with a huge loading space and given the high oil prices, the overall conditions for such a Pick-up has "radically changed".
The pick-up was planned to be built at Hannover from 2010.
Robust will still be built, but at VW’s Argentinian plant in Pacheco and sold in emerging markets. The annual unit production of Pick-up Robust is planned at 90,000 units.
June is traditionally a robust month for auto sales in the U.S., but this time it marks a 17-year low according to the Chicago Tribune. Figures are particularly down for American carmakers. Reports indicate that General Motors’ sales were down 18%, Ford lost 28%, and Chrysler slid by 36%. This is not isolated to domestic car makers, as Toyota’s sales also lost 21% and Nissan was down 18%.
Although sales numbers aren’t sexy, they show a real gauge of the buying public. Despite offering a buffet of discounts ranging from employee pricing to gas discounts, buyers stayed away in droves. If the buying public doesn’t respond soon, this could be the beginning of brand consolidation. For instance, auto industry analyst Erich Merkle of IRN Inc., suggested that GM may not only dump Hummer, but also look to eliminate GMC because all of its products are redundant.
The biggest bright spots were Honda and Volkswagen who had approximate June gains of 14% and 5% respectively.
Slow Summer Sales Could Lead To Less Brands Picture Gallery
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Volkswagen announced that its one-liter car, capable of one litre per 100km, will be launched as a limited edition in 2010. The car was revealed as a prototype in 2002.
The production is possible as the cost of the carbonfibre monocoque dropped from €35,000 (£28,000) to €5000 (£4000).
The car will be powered by a new two-cylinder unit that will offer more refinement, more torque and more power. The car will have a weight of only 300 kg.
The price for the one-liter car will be between €20,000 - €30,000.
Volkswagen will unveil its fifth-generation Polo next year. Its design will be inspired by the newly launched Scirocco. The car’s nose reflects the styling of VW’s sleek coupé – and inside, there is a classier cabin.
Future Polo will drop the large chrome grille seen on recent VWs for a simpler design with twin horizontal air intakes and angled headlights.
It will be built on the new PQ25 small car platform – first used by the latest SEAT Ibiza. Engine line-up will include 1.4 and 1.6-litre FSI direct-injection petrol units, plus new TDI turbodiesels. The 1.4-litre supercharged and turbocharged TSI motor, available in a 138bhp ‘warm hatch’ and a 168bhp GTI variant will also be used.
Touareg Stanley will make its penultimate stop at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California from 20 June to 18 July 2008. This is the place (in the Silicon Valley region near San Francisco) where the prototype was born.
Stanley was the first automobile to master the “Grand Challenge” for robot cars, gaining itself the reputation of a pioneering development project for autonomous vehicles.
The Touareg Stanley made a 212-kilometer race through the Mojave Desert amidst a field of 22 other competitors on 8 October 2005. The SUV drove through the deser with no driver and finished the cross line after six hours, 53 minutes and 58 seconds. Never before had a motor vehicle managed anything close to such a distance completely autonomously.
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The Volkswagen Scirocco seems to be a real success, everyone was impressed when the car was launched. We will see if the success goes on when the car will go on sale. But Volkswagen will not stop here, an even more powerful version is in the work, and here’s the first teaser image.
The Scirocco R32 will be powered by the Volkswagen new supercharged 3.0 TFSI, same that will be used for the Audi S4.
Stay tuned, more details will follow soon!
2009 Volkswagen Scirocco
Every week, we bring you pictures and videos of new cars taking a beating by inattentive drivers, buildings collapsing, drunken driving and sinking ships. Those incidents can be blamed on humans or mechanical failures but not this one.
A major hailstorm over the course of the last weekend harmed up to 30,000 brand new Volkswagen cars awaiting delivery to domestic and foreign customers. Little or nothing could be done by the staff at the VW assembly plant at Emden on the North Sea coast, as the number of vehicles were gigantic, and driving them or transporting them to a safe location was out of question.
Though VW declined to comment on the estimate of the damages, a German press report confirms it would be hundreds of million of dollars.
The affected vehicles will be put under the scanner and will be inspected closely by 100 VW staff members. By sending the vehicle through a special light tunnel, even the smallest of damages can be detected.
VW is insured against hail damages, so the manufacturer won’t be bothered much by this accident. Pain will only be felt by customers, who now have to wait for a longer time to drive home their new cars.
Leading companies from the automotive industry as well as from the telecommunications and software development sector are today presenting their results at the halfway stage in one of Germany’s most important road safety projects - AKTIV. The declared aim of this research initiative launched back in September 2006 and running until August 2010 is to prevent accidents in future by further enhancing active safety, relieving drivers and harmonising traffic flows. Volkswagen AG is one of the partners of the initiative sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology.
AKTIV is the abbreviation used for the research initiative “Adaptive und kooperative Technologien für den intelligenten Verkehr” (“Adaptive and cooperative technologies for intelligent transport”). The research initiative itself is subdivided into two main projects: “Assistance Systems / Active Safety” (AS) and “Traffic Management”. Running alongside these main topics, is also the project “Cooperative Cars” (CoCar).
With an investment volume of 37.5 million euros, “Assistance Systems” is the largest project within this research initiative. Almost half of which is sponsored by the German Federal Ministry for Economics. Besides “Integrated Lateral Vehicle Control”, this project also sets out to examine the four topics of “Active Emergency Stopping”, “Traffic Junction Assistance”, “Safety for Pedestrians and Cyclists” and “Road Safety and Attention”. The final analysis is scheduled for 31 August 2010.
>> read C’est http://www.autosdz.com, un nouveau site Web pour les annonces gratuites de vente et location de véhicules automobiles toutes carrosseries neufs ou d’occasion à travers le territoire national algérien. Réalisé par l’agence Web & IT http://www.webitech.net (enregistrement de nom de domaine et hébergement, structure architecturale, design, tests, mise en ligne et gestion générale).
Origine de l’idée : Sans rupture avec son prédécesseur http://www.engindz.com spécial engins, le site est né du (...)
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Volkswagen revealed today the Golf Twin Drive Concept, a new plug-in electric hybrid powered by a powerful 82-hp electric motor (designed for city driving) and a 2.0 liter turbodiesel producing 122 hp (for longer trips).
The electric engine has an autonomy of 50 kilometers (31 miles). The company will test a fleet of 20 vehicles which are produced in partnership with eight other German companies.
The car is supposed to go into production in 2010.
Volkswagen Golf TwinDrive Picture Gallery
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