{"id":43765,"date":"2011-10-25T12:40:34","date_gmt":"2011-10-25T16:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=43765"},"modified":"2011-10-25T09:44:19","modified_gmt":"2011-10-25T13:44:19","slug":"vw-vies-for-world-domination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2011\/10\/vw-vies-for-world-domination\/","title":{"rendered":"VW Vies for World Domination"},"content":{"rendered":"
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VW Chairman Martin WInterkorn may get his wish of world domination seven years early.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Volkswagen\u2019s ambitious Chairman Martin Winterkorn may get his wish a half decade earlier than expected, a survey of key auto analysts predicting that as we roll into the final months of 2011 the German company is poised to become the world\u2019s largest automotive manufacturer.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s at least seven years ahead of VW\u2019s original target for world domination \u2013 but the maker had an unexpected, if tragic, helping hand.\u00a0 Toyota, which had been the automotive king-of-the-hill for several years running, has been toppled by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami that crippled production for most of that country\u2019s manufacturers for much of the past year.<\/p>\n

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News You Can Use!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

General Motors, meanwhile, is also expected to push past Toyota, though it won\u2019t regain the lead it held for three-quarters of a century thanks to the aggressive sales push by VW, according to a study by Bloomberg News.<\/p>\n

That report predicts that sales will rise 13% this year for Volkswagen \u2013 which was the number-three maker for 2010 \u2013 to 8.1 million.\u00a0 General Motors will gain 8%, to reach 7.5 million.\u00a0 Toyota, meanwhile, will see sales slip by 9%, to 7.27 million, according to the analyst survey.<\/p>\n

But that not remain the status quo \u2013 at least not for long if the Japanese automaker\u2019s aggressive recovery plan gains traction.\u00a0 Forecasts by IHS Automotive, PwC Autofacts and J.D. Power and Associates don\u2019t all agree on the 2012 picture.\u00a0 IHS foresees Toyota topping VW by as much as 500,000 units, though Power predicts the German company will retain its top spot by a narrow lead of 50,000.<\/p>\n

While Toyota and GM officials continue to insist that being number one in sales is not their number one priority, that is a clear goal set out by Volkswagen, and the maker is taking a variety of steps to get there \u2013 though it originally was seen as the eventual payoff of an ambitious 10-year growth plan that runs through 2018.<\/p>\n

Over the next five years alone it will spend $87 billion to boost annual production capacity to 10 million.\u00a0 And that figure doesn\u2019t include another $20 billion that will be spent by the German maker and its partners at its Chinese joint ventures.<\/p>\n

At the current pace, VW is now likely to reach that production target as much as three years ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n

But analysts caution that Volkswagen\u2019s ascendency is not an absolute.\u00a0 It has run into problems in several areas.\u00a0 In China, while it is growing fast it has been surpassed by General Motors, which hopes to double its own sales in the Asian nation by mid-decade.<\/p>\n

Volkswagen\u2019s ambitions in other Asian markets could be curtailed by a bitter squabble it is having with erstwhile partner Suzuki, which has accused the Germans of breach of contract.\u00a0 VW insists it wants to continue that partnership anyway \u2013 and it is under pressure to do so, Moody\u2019s Investors Services warning a break-up could hurt VW\u2019s credit ratings.<\/p>\n

Toyota, meanwhile, might not admit its ambitions \u2013 and it\u2019s clear CEO Akio Toyoda has to deal with other issues, including quality and safety snags \u2013 but the Japanese marque is targeting a 10 million production base, as well.<\/p>\n

So, the coming years could see one of the most bitter industry dogfights in decades as the top three makers vie for world supremacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VW wants to be number one – and is spending over $100 billion to get there. But TheDetroitBureau.com reports the German maker could achieve global domination seven years ahead of its original goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43765"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43765"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=43765"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=43765"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=43765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}