Die Gläserne Manufaktur (where the VW Phaeton is built)

[az]

I don't normally post stuff like this, but this one really impressed me: http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=1837641

[cjolley]

Hey, the inside of that looks just like my garage at home!



























































NOT!
Simply amazing.

[ZokesPro]

Wow!

[GT98]

Makes me wonder how they can make any money off that car with all those extra things they do

[az]

They don't

[cjolley]

They don't

Uh oh....

[agallag]

Kind of like the new Bugatti Veyron. It sells for about $1.25 million US, but it costs an estimated (by Jeremy Clarkson) $5 million to build each one. It's a halo car, designed to show what the company is capable of, so people will buy gobs of Golfs, Jettas, Passats, Polos, etc.

[az]

BTW, the Phaeton's drivetrain is also the basis for the Bentley Continental GT and the Flying Spur. I am actually not sure VW is losing money on the Phaeton, but they don't sell as much as they had hoped. Still, they won't cancel it, that would be bad for their image. I don't know, though, what kind of strategy they have: Audi is their premier marque, Seat tries to become a sporty, young brand, Skoda builds cheaper, bigger and more practical cars than VW on the platforms of Golf and Polo, and VW is becoming too expensive for the masses, all their cars below the Passat have IMHO absolutely no sex-appeal, are boring and you can get cars at least as good with better design for less from other manufacturers. The Touareg, new Passat and Phaeton are beautiful cars, but even the Passat isn't where the volume is, price-wise. VW doesn't have a consistant image anymore, except maybe for quality (don't know if that's true) and conservativity.

[JTD]

I read somewhere, that the Phaeton is selling less than half of the expected figures.
On top of that if the VW luxury division (i'm guessing this includes Phaeton, Toureq, though not other marques in vw group) isn't making a profit within three years, the board will discontinue the models.

[Nowhere]

...
Skoda builds cheaper, bigger and more practical cars than VW on the platforms of Golf and Polo, and VW is becoming too expensive for the masses, all their cars below the Passat have IMHO absolutely no sex-appeal, are boring and you can get cars at least as good with better design for less from other manufacturers.
...

And Passat too, the old one - Skoda Superb. So what will be when, ~1 year after the original, Skoda will introduce it's version of Passat...they actually tended to be more elegant for some time.

[az]

The Superb got really bad reviews because it's not very secure, and the new Passat looks really elegant. But of course the Superb was a lot cheaper than the Passat. Unlike Fabia and Octavia, though, it wasn't better than the VW model built on the same platform, and it was in a segment where prestige is more important.