Archive for Volkswagen

Our prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi told the press yesterday that Volkswagen was currently conducting a due diligence audit on Proton, confirming the previous report by The Edge. A due dilience audit is ann investigation or audit of a potential investment which serves to confirm all material facts in regards to a sale.

“It is important for Proton to be comfortable with its potential partner. And as soon as that is confirmed, then I believe we must tie up the deal as quickly as possible,” he said.

He further added that the introduction of the Proton Persona had nothing to do with the timing of Volkswagen’s due diligence study, but it does prove to the world that Proton is still capable of coming up with a superb product.

Source

Related Posts:
The Edge: Due diligence audit for Proton this month

According to The Edge, it’s sources have informed them of an upcoming due diligence audit on Proton assets sometime this month. Analysts think that the exercise marks a significant milestone in the Proton-Volkswagen talks as such an exercise is normally only carried out if major issues in the discussion have been ironed out.

Source

Volkswagen Canada has canceled it’s introductory campaign for the Volkswagen Eos? Now why would they do that… well, simply because it did not make sense anymore to go ahead with it!

See, even before any form of advertising was put up, the Volkswagen Eos had begun to disappear from dealer lots around the country, based on pure word of mouth alone. All of the year’s stock had nearly sold out.

But still, in my opinion if you have the budget for it, the ad campaign could serve to further build the Volkswagen brand in the country instead of just selling the car.

Source

Jakarta’s Investor Daily reported that Volkswagen will be building an assembly plant in Indonesia next year to assemble a small car with an engine size of less than 1.5 liters as well as a van. The newspaper reported this citing an Indonesian industry ministry director general Budhi Dharmadi, but could not contact Volkswagen officials for comments. I wonder if this is true - and if it is - how will affect the Proton-Volkswagen talks?

Source

The Edge has more insider news on the Proton-Volkswagen deal that surfaced earlier this week. According to The Edge, it’s sources have informed them that the Proton-Volkswagen deal now has an additional detail to it - Proton will control it’s domestic dealer network, but Volkswagen will control the international network.

As previously reported, a new company will be formed to hold key Proton assets and both Volkswagen and Proton will have shareholding in it - 51% to the German company of course. This share comes at a price - a few hundred million ringgit as working capital to get the company going.

The 49% Proton-held equity will be represented by the key assets that it will be bringing in to the new company - R&D, engineering, manufacturing and the Lotus Group.

A government source also revealed that a successful deal with GM is unlikely because of Proton’s relationship with Iran, something GM has said is not acceptable if anything were to happen between the two companies.

So Volkswagen it is, and hopefully fast!

Source

What Car reports that Volkswagen might be looking into creating more variants of the upcoming 2008 Volkswagen Polo instead of the current 5-door, 3-door and CrossPolo variants. Additional body styles such as cabriolets, coupes and even mini-MPV derivatives are possible.

An MPV Polo could be called a Polo Plus, following the Golf and Golf Plus naming scheme. The thought of a Polo Cabriolet reminds me of the old Fiat Punto Cabriolet, one of the cheapest open top cars you can buy on the 2nd hand market today at under RM20,000.

Volkswagen is of the opinion that if you don’t continue to improve your products and keep at a standstill, it is actually a step backwards as technology always evolves.

Thus, Volkswagen has further improved the Volkswagen Polo BlueMotion’s fuel economy by a little - from 3.9 liters per 100km to 3.8 liters per 100km, thanks to a 3-cylinder 1.4 liter TDI engine with 195Nm of torque that allows high gearing, low wind resistance with a drag coefficient (Cd) of 0.30, as well as low rolling resistance thanks to fuel-saving tyres.

Volkswagen currently has a few futuristic engine projects running concurrently - one is a diesel engine that uses some petrol engine properties and another is a petrol engine that uses some diesel engine properties.

It calls its experimental diesel engine a “Combined Combustion System”. It’s a diesel engine that can run on synthetic fuels, uses air-fuel mixing style of a gasoline engine, 70% exhaust gas recirculation to reduce NOx emissions, low CO2 output and virtually no soot. This will be road ready within the next 10 years.

The petrol-powered engine uses a special compression ignition system at low engine speeds to help improve fuel economy and emissions. It ignites the air-fuel mixture through high compression using the piston alone, without any spark.

Fuel economy could improve by 17% using this method compared to a conventional spark-ignition system, but at medium to high engine speeds conventional spark ignition is used. This is similar to Honda’s Activated Radical Combustion technology, which also works at relatively lower engine speeds of below 4,000rpm.

Volkswagen is also working on a hybrid engine as well as a fuel cell engine, but it’s executive director for group research Jürgen Leohold did not comment on that matter, instead preferring to focus on the new enhancements to both petrol and diesel technology. “Diesel and petrol engines have had long evolutions, but there is more to be gained,” he said.

Source

Volkswagen has posted this promotional video of the Volkswagen Tiguan on it’s Tiguan microsite. It shows two of the production models dressed in silver and red in motion. Thanks to reader Patrick Wassel for the tip-off.

Related Posts:
Volkswagen Tiguan details revealed
Volkswagen Tiguan Concept

Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen Tiguan Promo Video

Volkswagen’s new Tiguan SUV will make it’s public debut in September at the 2007 Frankfurt International Motor Show, but here we have some official press photos to look at before it’s public debut.

Five engine options are available - three TSI gasoline engines and two TDI turbodiesel engines. The two new TDI engines have two outputs - 140hp and 170hp with 320Nm or 350Nm of torque respectively churned out at 1,750rpm. They meet Euro 5 emission standards.

The TSI engines are of 150hp, 170hp and 200hp variants and thanks to turbocharging they all make healthy amounts of torque, with the base 150hp model putting out 240Nm of torque from a low 1,750rpm, matching diesel levels of torque achievable at low ends of the rev range. The more powerful TSI models both make 280Nm from 1,800rpm.

The Tiguan is supposed to have Audi and Porsche brothers as it would only make sense, but only the Audi Q5 has been confirmed so far, with Porsche denying any plans to make a baby Cayenne based on the Tiguan-Q5 platform.

More photos after the jump.

Related Posts:
2008 Audi Q5 to be built in Ingolstadt
Audi Cross Coupe Quattro Concept - future Audi Q5?

Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen Tiguan details revealed