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VW pondering low-cost sub-brand for China?

More detail is being sketched into the Volkswagen Group's plan to launch a low-cost brand for emerging markets. Late last year a German report quoted a VW rep saying that the brand has been interested in building a no-frills car, the kind that would challenge Dacia and Datsun, for a while. With both Proton and Suzuki effectively out of the partnership picture, a report in Reuters suggests VW could go straight to China, developing a car with its joint venture partners and building and selling it there.
Officially, company CEO Martin Winterkorn said the issue of a model for emerging markets would be decided this year but VW isn't any closer to confirming any kind of plan for a car in its portfolio underneath the Up!, remarking to Reuters about the China possibility, "That's an issue we're currently looking at."

Volkswagen Motorsport cranks out Golf touring car

Just when you thought Volkswagen had done all the hot Golfs we could handle, its motorsports division has come out with an even hotter one. This racing version is built to compete in the Touringcar Racer International Series (TCR) across Europe and Asia, and certainly looks the part. Based on the production Golf hatchback we all know, the TCR competition version promises to be to circuit-based touring car racing what the Polo R WRC is to the rally stage. And that little pocket rocket has been positively dominating the World Rally Championship. Developed in conjunction with Seat's racing department and Liqui Moly Team Engstler, the Golf touring car packs the 2.0-liter turbo four from the Golf R. Only instead of 292 horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque in the production version, it's been tuned to channel 330 hp and 302 lb-ft to the front wheels (instead of all four) through a six-speed dual-clutch transmission. It rides on 18-inch alloys fitted to a track widened by nearly a foot and a half, along with a competition-spec aero kit to keep it glued to the tarmac and a stripped-out cockpit. Though the 2015 TCR series is already under way, a pair of these racing Golfs will be entered in the upcoming round at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, before the series heads off to Singapore (in support of the F1 grand prix there) and Thailand ahead of the final round in Macau. If everything goes well, customer teams will be able to pick these up and enter them in next year's championship. Volkswagen develops new Golf for the racetrack - Concept car for customer racing, in line with new TCR regulations - Production-based touring car with 330 hp, front-wheel drive and six-speed DSG gearbox - First competitive test this weekend in Spielberg (A) Wolfsburg (09 July 2015). A new Golf for the racetrack: Volkswagen Motorsport is developing its first racing car based on the seventh generation Golf. The production-based, 330-hp concept car is assembled in accordance with TCR regulations and is intended to help Volkswagen evaluate a potential customer racing programme from the 2016 season onwards. In order to accelerate the development of the car, the new Golf will be tested under competitive conditions between now and the end of the season: as cooperation partner, the Liqui Moly Team Engstler will run two cars at the eighth round of the Touringcar Racer International Series (TCR) at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg (A).

VW's Winterkorn tells 20,000 staffers of big cost-cutting plans

During a gathering of 20,000 Volkswagen Group employees at company headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany on Wednesday, CEO Martin Winterkorn dropped a bombshell. The boss stated that the automaker isn't operating efficiently enough and admitted the company needs to radically start cutting back to raise its profit margins. To right the ship, Winterkorn has proposed killing off less profitable models and spending less on research and development.
According to Reuters, Winterkorn wants to raise the VW brand's profit margin from about 2.9 percent in 2013 to a target of 6 percent. To make that possible, his plan amounts to increasing cost cutting until Volkswagen reaches about 5 billion euros ($6.7 billion) per year to get things back in order. "Over the short-term, we urgently need more efficiency and higher profit," the CEO said during his speech, according to Reuters.
However, Winterkorn can't make these decisions unilaterally. Volkswagen's works council also has a seat on the supervisory board to represent laborers, and it isn't likely to take the proposed cuts sitting down.