Volkswagen of America, Inc. announced last year that it has changed its name to Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. The change will be fully effective January 1, 2008.

The new name better reflects the fact that the Volkswagen Group of America includes five distinct brands: Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, and Volkswagen, as well as the related financial services functions of Audi Financial Services, Bentley Financial Services and Volkswagen Credit.
“Our company, like the entire Volkswagen Group, has grown dramatically since our formation in the United States in 1955. Our new corporate name allows our individual brands to flourish, while recognizing that we have a common support structure that gives us great strength as we face our competitors,” said Stefan Jacoby, President and Chief Executive Officer. “The new name Volkswagen Group of America reflects the much wider array of goods and services we now offer, and prepares us for even more activities in the future.”

But 2008 has brought more changes. VW is moving to Virginia and has announced that they will be opening a manufacturing facility in the USA in 2009 or 2010. The strategic advantage of this move is to reduce costs. In recent years the value of the US dollar has plummeted. Since 2002, the value has dropped more than 50%. The company has another North American plant in Puebla, Mexico, but the capacity of that plant is full. Still, the changes will be nothing new to the company as VW had produced over 1,000,000 vehicles in Westmoreland, Pennsylvania during the 1970s and 1980s.

Along with changes to infrastructure, the newly named group will bring a great variety of cars to America in an effort to increase its market share (currently 2%). This will allow them to better compete with offerings from Japanese and European automakers.

In February, VW announced at the Chicago International Motor Show that they would bring the new Routan to the states, while being produced in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Also coming are the Passat CC, the Tiguan, and the Scirocco.

Renewed focus for Volkswagen forthcoming will be on fuel efficiency, especially utilizing the latest diesel fuel technologies.

With so many product changes/additions in the pipeline, it will be interesting to see which vehicles are produced in the US. Two considerations will be the US demand for small cars now outpacing the demand for larger SUVs, and the current exchange rate. Cars more affected by the weak dollar would be more likely to be produced here.

Photos:
Passat CC

VW Routan

Sources:

VW Group
James Healey of USA Today

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