All Volkswagen articles
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ArticleVW sets up new components division to drive efficiency
Volkswagen has established a new division – Volkswagen Group Components – tasked with reducing costs by €2 billion ($2.27 billion) while improving efficiency and taking on board the increasing importance of electric vehicles. Thomas Schmall (right), chairman of VW’s new Group Components division, with Stefan Sommer, VW Group board member ...
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ArticleRenault plans home delivery for online sales in Russia
Renault has announced plans to start a home delivery service in Russia for vehicles sold via its online showroom.The French carmaker told Russian newspaper Vedomosti that the start of the home delivery service would coincide with the release of the Renault Arkana (pictured) in May this year. It will make ...
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ArticleHanging in the balance
Lower production output, slower growth in export markets and several regulatory and operational issues are threatening to unbalance Poland’s finished vehicle market
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ArticleMexican car industry calls for action on fuel shortage
Mexico’s new federal government has launched a radical strategy to combat the country's long-term problem of fuel theft. However, this has led to fuel shortages in central regions, which have closed gas stations, and is now threatening the transport and logistics supporting the automotive sector.States including Hidalgo, Jalisco, Michoacan, Guanajuato ...
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ArticleUS considers lifting sanctions against Gaz
The US is planning to lift sanctions imposed on companies owned or controlled by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska and has once again postponed the introduction of sanctions against the Russian carmaker Gaz Group, in which Deripaska has a controlling interest.The US Treasury department’s office for Foreign Assets Control (FAC) notified ...
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ArticleA billion reasons to try
For the past ten years, a rising number of Chinese OEMs have appeared on African roads. Bearing cheerful names such as Geely, Chery, Hafei, Chana and Foton, some managed to land on their feet and build a healthy presence. Others, though, have gone down face-first.Foton, a Beijing-based manufacturer that produces ...
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ArticleDealing with change
In recent years, a number of shifts in the industry have begun to affect traditional dealership models, changing the types of relationships that exist between dealers, OEMs and customers. As OEMs move increasingly towards selling more vehicles directly to customers, there are growing indications of significant impacts for traditional dealers. ...
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ArticleConnecting the dots
Buy a new BMW, and it’s no surprise to find it stuffed with hi-tech telematics. Real-time traffic information, GPS navigation, automatic speed limit display, rear vision display, parking assistance, smartphone integration, intelligent diagnostics and status display – all of these and more are fast becoming part of the modern driving ...
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ArticleSovac starts assembling SKD kits for Audi in Algeria
Audi has begun assembling vehicles at the Relizane plant run by its long-time Algerian partner, Sovac, from semi-knockdown (SKD) kits prepared at the OEM’s Ingolstadt plant in Germany.“[All models] are built at the main plant in Ingolstadt and transported to Barcelona, where they are knocked down into individual assembly groups ...
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ArticleVW Autoeuropa plant forced to ship via Leixões
Strikes at the Portuguese port of Setúbal that are expected to continue into January have forced Volkswagen to switch exports of its T-Roc SUV, made at the Autoeuropa plant in Palmela, to the northern port of Leixões.According to the ports administration of Douro, Leixões and Viana do Castelo (APDL), the ...
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ArticleWLTP hits sales and profits in Germany
Carmaker VW Group and parts supplier Schaeffler have both put weaker third-quarter financial performance down to the effects of the new Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP).As manufacturers have phased out older passenger car models in advance of the more stringent emissions testing procedure coming into effect on September ...
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ArticleRewriting the rules
Russia’s Industry and Trade Ministry wants OEMs to make huge investments in new production capacity in Russia over the coming decade, in order to continue qualifying for state aid. A bill laying down the basis of a new national localisation strategy was published in August that is designed to replace ...
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ArticleEnergising the synergising
Renault and Nissan began their wide-ranging alliance and set up cross-shareholdings in each other back in 1999, and since then Daimler, Avtovaz and most recently Mitsubishi have also become part of this evolving structure. Numerous shared vehicle platforms, manufacturing and logistics operations and back-office functions have been developed. Furthermore, impressive ...
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ArticleVW starts making Seat Tarraco at Wolfsburg
Spanish carmaker Seat, part of the VW Group, has begun producing its Tarraco SUV on assembly lines at VW’s Wolfsburg factory – the first time in 20 years a non-VW vehicle has been built at the plant in northern Germany.Designed and developed in Barcelona, the Tarraco is built on the ...
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ArticleHitting the gas
Environmental regulations covering the shipping industry are set to tighten across a range of parameters, from the sulphur content in fuel to CO2 emissions. In response, some shipping operators have begun to explore the use of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in place of traditional marine fuel oil. Offering a reduction ...
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ArticleBrazilian auto association adjusts forecast
Brazil’s National Association of Automotive Vehicle Manufacturers (Anfavea), has adjusted predictions for how the year will end for the finished vehicle sector in the country – upwards for domestic registrations and production, downwards for exports.In updated forecasts, Anfavea projected a 13.7% rise to 2.54m units in vehicles licensed, up from ...
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ArticleWLTP causes sharp shift in German car sales
New passenger car registrations in Germany fell 31% year-on-year to an estimated 200,100 in September. In August, the figure was a 25% increase to 316,400.German automotive industry association, the VDA, said the volatility was because of distortions caused by the new Worldwide Light-Duty Vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP), which is intended ...
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ArticleShowing robots the ropes
Volkswagen’s Transparent Factory in the eastern German city of Dresden is arguably one of the more unusual automotive manufacturing sites in the world. Named due to its highly glazed exterior, it is not only the production location for the company’s e-Golf but also home to a number of other related ...
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ArticleTaking cover from the heat
In late August 2017, Hurricane Harvey – the storm that devastated the Caribbean, flattening Puerto Rico – made landfall on the Texas coast. The second-costliest tropical cyclone on record and the third hurricane of the exceptionally active 2017 hurricane season, it inflicted a reported $125 billion in damage and, according ...
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ArticleVW Group highlights gains from making Audi A1 in Spain
Volkswagen Group has said it expects substantial logistics benefits to follow, now that it is producing the new-look Audi A1 in Seat’s Martorell factory in Spain.“[It] joins Seat vehicles in most distribution transport flows, which enables us to achieve cost and lead time synergies, both for Seat and Audi,” Seat ...