Report: VW readying seven-passenger SUV
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Report: VW readying seven-passenger SUV
Report: VW readying seven-passenger SUV
It looks like a few more details have shown up on the rumored addition to the Volkswagen SUV family. According to Auto Express, the newcomer will have its sights set dead on the American market and will boast seating for seven. It will also carry a slimmer price tag than the current Touareg, all of this courtesy of VW America guru Jonathan Browning.
Auto Express is also reporting that the new crossover/SUV will most likely be built here in the U.S. at the company's Chattanooga, Tennessee manufacturing facility alongside the new Passat.
The German automaker has made no secret of the fact that it wants nothing more than to carve out a larger chunk of the American auto market, and doing so will require a portfolio of vehicles that caters more specifically to Yankee tastes. By 2018, VW wants to sell 800,000 vehicles in the land of the free. Last year the company managed to move 256,830 units.
http://www.autoblog.com/2011/01/20/r...passenger-suv/
It isn't a huge market, but there are practically no decent 7 passenger SUV's. Most of them are 5 passenger + 2 midgets SUVs. Mercedes GL is probably the most decent one with a useful third row, but its an Alabama built POS 
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The problem is that the Touareg is too expensive and, despite the car-based unibody frame, is still ruggedly engineered for off-road use. The Touraeg's name (that of a Saharan desert group) also offended a number of persons of Arab/North-African descent, and VW received complaints about that (sounds silly to me, but that's the way some people think). VW, with this new design, seems to be going for a new, less-expensive, less off-road-capable SUV that will appeal more to soccer-moms and a more mainstream customer-base.
Last edited by mmarshall; Jan 21, 2011 at 06:30 PM.
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One must also keep in mind that, with the new VW being a Euro-design even if destined for the American market, a vehicle that will easily hold 7 Europeans or smaller adults may not easily hold seven larger, oversize Americans. That's why Ford, GM, and Toyota do their big Tahoes, Expeditions, Sequoias, etc.....
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The problem is that the Touareg is too expensive and, despite the car-based unibody frame, is still ruggedly engineered for off-road use. The Touraeg's name (that of a Saharan desert group) also offended a number of persons of Arab/North-African descent, and VW received complaints about that (sounds silly to me, but that's the way some people think). VW, with this new design, seems to be going for a new, less-expensive, less off-road-capable SUV that will appeal more to soccer-moms and a more mainstream customer-base.
If VW wants a much bigger share of the US market they really need to work on the reliability and durability of their vehicles and getting the cost to repair and maintain them down. I don't think this strategy of building larger obviously cost cut vehicles(new Jetta) is going to help them or their perception much either in the US especially if they don't get the reliability down. Americans generally will not buy unreliable vehicles in large numbers unless it is from a very premium german luxury brand(BMW or Mercedes). Compared to the many different unreliable brands in Europe VWs may not be very bad and may even stand out as being pretty reliable but here in the US where Toyota and Honda are top sellers VW has a long way to go in the reliability department before people buy them in large numbers.
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The Touareg along with the Pheaton is also one of the most notoriously unreliable and problematic vehicles sold in America in the past 10 years. The Touareg has even been singled out in some surveys as being the most unreliable vehicle of certain years. Word gets around quick not to buy these vehicles due to the horrible reliability and very expensive repairs.
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