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The Truth About Cars
The Truth About Cars (www.thetruthaboutcars.com) has great Volkswagen news, photos, videos and more
Wednesday, Nov 18
Toyota Global Sales Headed Up
Despite allegedly falling quality, magical accelerator pedals, Hyundai snapping at their heels, depressed stock price, management musical chairs and Volkswagen taking their “world’s biggest car maker by volume” title you’d think Toyota would have little to smile about. Or not. Reut...
Monday, Nov 16
VW: 60 Models, One Platform
Volkswagen will continue its pioneering work testing the boundaries between platform-sharing and brand-engineering, reports Autocar, with a new platform destined to underpin some 60 models globally. The modularen querbaukasten (modular transverse engine, or MQB) architecture...
Wednesday, Nov 11
Volkswagen (Production) Über Alles
The Guardian reports that in the first 9 months of 2009, Volkswagen/Porsche made 4.4 million cars whereas Toyota made 4 million. Naturally, the majority of VW’s growth has come from the area which is growing even faster than VW, China. But the lads from the Middle Kingdom weren’t the only mod...
Thursday, Nov 5
Hybrid and VW Diesel Sales Analysis: Prius Outsells Insight 8 to 1, Jetta TDI 4 to 1
Hybrid sales in October outpaced the market, increasing 11.4% over October 2008. The heavy lifter as usual, was Toyota, up 15%; Toyota’s hybrids now represent 77% of the total US hybrid market, which is 2.9% of the total market. The Prius continues to dominate the whole hybrid sector, with a 5...
Tuesday, Nov 3
German brands October sales: Mercedes, Porsche, VW up; BMW down; Smart hit hard
VW posted a 7% increase in October over the same month a year ago. The Rabbit’s fade-out led the negative column, with a 44% decline. The Jetta posted a solid 25% increase. The Passat, down 41% is giving way to the CC, which is way up at +256%. The CC now outsells the Passat almost [...]
Wednesday, Oct 28
What’s Wrong With This Picture?: Midsize Mainstream Meshuga Edition
Oooh, look! It’s another official VW sketch of its North America and China-only, Passat-replacing New Midsize Sedan (NMS). Never mind product strategy, on a clear day will you be able to see out those windows? Hit the jump for the old official sketch. For contrast. Ish.
Thursday, Oct 22
Porsche-VW Anschluss: The Worrying Bits
Volkswagen and Porsche are about to make it official, as Volkswagen has now bought nearly 49.9 percent of Porsche. And though we’ve had plenty of time to get used to the idea, there are some troubling indications for the future of the Porsche brand in particular. As usual, the worries begin wi...
Monday, Oct 19
VW Rabbit Dead Again
TTAC’s MontanaVista sent us the heads-up: Volkswagen has dropped the Rabbit name for the U.S. Golf. Again. The commentator whose name reminds me of the station wagons of my youth alerted us that VeeDub’s U.S. website has finally been updated. The Rabbit has disappeared down the, uh, rabbit hole....
Friday, Oct 9
Porsche-Volkswagen Merger Annoys… Norway?
Since VW and Porsche started playing footsie, there have been enough twists and turns to fill TTAC’s pages with nothing but Deutsche drama. First there was Porsche’s audacious bid for Volkswagen’s. Then, there was Volkswagen’s fight back to take over Porsche. Now, the Norwegians are unha...
Friday, Oct 2
The Dirty Business Of Clean Diesels
We get accused a lot of being anti-diesel. In reality, most of us love driving them. Paying for them is another issue. VW has just announced pricing on the new 2010 Golf VI, and the diesel premium is…premium. As in $4500. Strictly speaking, that investment also buys you a slightly [...]
Thursday, Oct 1
September Sales: Ze Germans
Volkswagen was up 1.5 percent, despite huge drops in total Rabbit (-74.5 percent) and Passat (-55.8 percent) sales. Passat CC more than made up the difference for its pedestrian sibling, selling nearly three and a half times the Passat at 2,290. Tiguan (-17.7 percent) and Touareg (-49.4 percen...
Monday, Jan 19
Intermittent Daily Podcast: The Weirdo’s Paradox
I’m almost due for my next car. Well, in six months. Which might as well be tomorrow. My GTI will go back to Volkswagen so that some poor clod can own it out of warranty. And this leaves me shopping for a replacement. This is where I’m in trouble. Not only do I have car-lover’s [...]
Tuesday, Nov 11
Volkswagen to Dealers: Build Or Die. Again.
Red – or make that white alert! Volkswagen is planning another attack on the profitability of its dealers. They need to build yet another round of brand new showrooms. In 1995, VeeDub introduced the new architecture for their worldwide dealer network. First, a prototype was built on the gro...
Saturday, Mar 15
Daily Podcast: Will Luxury Car Sales Suck?
Rising U.S. gas prices and the American mortgage meltdown has hit sales of new vehicles hard. In terms of the product mix, a lot of ink has been expended on the rapid, ongoing transition from gas-guzzling SUVs to more miserly models-- a change that's hurt the truck-heavy domestics particula...
Thursday, Feb 7
Daily Podcast: The Power of No
One of the nice things about having a tightly-focused brand-- complete with an explanatory tagline-- is that you know when to say "no." Pontiac: We Build Excitement. Minivan? No. Crappy coupe. Uh-uh. Mercedes: Engineered Like No Other Car in the World. Cheap shit downmarket decontented seda...
Friday, Nov 16
How to Lose Your Shirt on a New Car… Slower
Chevy Corvette - 50 percent Honda Civic Sedan - 52 percent Infiniti G37 - 52 percent MINI Cooper - 52 percent Scion tC - 52 percent Scion xB - 52 percent Toyota Corolla - 52 percent Volkswagen Eos - 52 percent Volkswagen Jetta - 51 percent Volkswagen Rabbit - 51 percent
