Ditto for VW. They are in the same league as Toyota, and have the same target market. Bland, reliable, well built, no nonsense A-B vehicles.
All the rubbish out there from a lot of critics on either manufacturers side, need to sit back and think of the reality of VW and Toyota. THEY ARE JUST AS GOOD AS EACH OTHER. Any points of difference are negligible, in which the pedantic fan-boys love to exploit to their deluded advantage.
stevo2,
Jan 31, 9:50pm
That report was 7 months old.
stevo2,
Jan 31, 9:50pm
lol. Could be on the cards though. Jazz will be a happy man.
gammelvind,
Jan 31, 11:07pm
Well said, happy here with my Toyota, yep it isn't very exciting but it starts everyday and parts if I do need them are pretty much available anywhere. VW has one disadvantage here in NZ, the anti euro perception. Great little boxes, as are Toyota.
nzdoug,
Aug 2, 6:39pm
It did last Friday officially.
gunhand,
Aug 2, 6:44pm
That will be the VW group I would think. That covers a few other marques as well as just VW badged vehicles. Take away there other holdings and see if VW is on top by itself. As far as I know Toyota is just Toyota, not several other brands as well.
thejazzpianoma,
Aug 2, 6:59pm
But does this matter?
For what purpose is being the most popular manufacturer an advantage to consumers buying their product (which for me would be the primary area of interest and I assume others as well).
The vast majority of VW's other volume brands/models are just putting different party dress's on VW platforms. There are several obvious advantages to doing this from a consumer perspective, a few are:
1. A massive volume of factory and after-market parts available. Only body panels are generally model specific. The multi brand approach likely increases the amount of wearable parts available than decreases it.
2. A monumentally huge combined R and D budget and an equally massive amount of combined experience. This is why VW lead the way with so many innovations, they are experience and can afford to. VW put down a quarter of a trillion NZD developing their range of new vehicles for the 2000's, as a result it put the vast majority of it's competitors 10 years behind the game.
3. Third party development of accessory's, parts and software solutions. It makes sense to develop things for VW group vehicles if you are a third party provider. The tech is generally shared and the popularity phenomenal. Just look at the likes of Ross Tech.
Lastly, since we are comparing to Toyota. VW don't really seem to be that publicly concerned with being "the biggest", it's Toyota who like to trade on popularity over substance. The numbers in my opinion even appear to be a bit rigged in their favour.
Take for instance the "worlds most popular car" the Corolla. Well, from what I can see a "Corolla" is both a sedan and a hatch version. Compare that to the Golf where the sedan is called a Jetta and the hatch a Golf. If you combine VW's Jetta and Golf sales to give you a fair comparison the Golf/Jetta is by a considerable margin the worlds most popular car.
Really though, other than following it for a bit of amusement, the worlds most popular title doesn't mean much to me. Part of my enjoyment from owning/working on VW's is definitely the easy supply of parts and information that you get from volume production, likewise the superior development. But whether VW is technically number one or number two, so long as they are financially healthy, innovating and producing in large numbers I am happy.
Popularity is something that is more important in my opinion to a non savey but large proportion of the buying public, who's almost entire criteria for a new vehicle is it's popularity with their peers. Suzuki Swift type buyers.
gunhand,
Aug 2, 7:24pm
Popularity is something that is more important in my opinion to a non savey but large proportion of the buying public, who's almost entire criteria for a new vehicle is it's popularity with their peers. Suzuki Swift type buyers.
Edited by thejazzpianoma at 12:03 pm, Sun 2 Aug
Since it seems VW and all its holdings are fast catching up (which doesn't worry me one little bit) then wouldn't that mean all those buyers are just buying on popularity of their pairs as well? Or do VW buyers buy for another reason, and not that everyone else buys them and enjoys them and their reliability? 100000 VW polo (as example) can't really be any different than 100000 Swift buyers, can they?
thejazzpianoma,
Aug 2, 7:31pm
A greater portion will likely be more savy, given that a lot of VW product also fills the criteria for a logical choice, rather than purely an emotionally led one. That said, I am under no disillusion that many of VW's buyers will be "fashion" led as well.
But again, does it matter? Nope, at least not to me, anything that drives the volume production of vehicles that I enjoy is a good thing in my opinion. My only concern is where too much "compromise" is made with regard to an end user that is not very "savy". So far so good though, VW for example seem happy to offer smaller capacity high output engines that require high octane fuel and all the many advantages that entails. Something that it's competitors are too scared to do because they cater so heavily for the lowest common denominator that won't get their head around such things.
My thoughts anyway.
3tomany,
Aug 2, 7:35pm
Toyota includes many brands Yoyota, daihatsu, Hino, Lexus.
gunhand,
Aug 2, 8:20pm
True, forgot about Lexus, wasn't aware the other two were under their umbrella.
johotech,
Aug 2, 8:26pm
I remember my first Yoyota.
gunhand,
Aug 2, 8:30pm
Think I was pretty pissed first time I had a good one too.
johotech,
Aug 2, 8:32pm
Maybe you had 3toomany!
gunhand,
Aug 2, 8:37pm
Yes lol, that tends to account for such things.
mm12345,
Aug 2, 9:07pm
That's not a one-way street IMO. VAG is lucky (or clever) enough to have market volume large enough to support global one-platform design, but to allow engine diversification across markets. FSI combined with super/turbo sequential forced induction might not be the right product in some markets due to fuel quality/availability. It's mechanically complex, even if they can keep cost and selling price down by large volume production. It's also not the only way to extract more out of each drop of fuel, as mechanically simpler FSI / high combustion chamber pressure (from mechanical compression ratio rather than forced induction) engines can achieve similar thermal efficiency without forced induction, and/or so-called atkinson cycle engines used in some hybrids are even simpler, dispensing with the need for FSI to cope with high combustion pressure yet providing even better thermal efficiency. Sure, forced induction gets you performance on tap, but there's not going to be a free lunch. Worth it in a performance car perhaps, but not a shopping basket.
bryshaw,
Aug 2, 11:18pm
Consumer reliability chart puts VW as below average.
meow_mix,
Aug 3, 2:14am
So VW spent NZ$250,000,000,000 on R&D for developing their post year 2000 models? Seems a bit much, maybe they could spend a little more and build their cars properly. All that FSI, DSG, etc technology craps out after five years.
grangies,
Aug 3, 2:54am
Are your sums correct? $250 Billion? ? ? $250 Billion? wow.
stevo2,
Aug 3, 3:29am
Thats what Jazz said in post #12
trouser,
Aug 3, 4:20am
VW R&D budget for 2013 was $13.5 billion usd. Biggest in the world for 3 years in a row.
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