Where is the passat built for the american market
VW American dream: U.S. built Passat
Jonathan you recently took over the top
seat at VW and clearly this is a brand
that's a powerhouse in Europe a
powerhouse in China Brazil but when it
comes to the United States it is not
where it wants to be what's your
strategy for winning in the US well what
you see here today is a great vision of
the tangible changes that we're making
for our us because this is a market
that's very important to us it's really
the second or the first most important
market globally whether you look at
China first u.s. second it's one of the
key markets and its market that we
absolutely need to succeed in and so
Volkswagen took the decision
interestingly during the recession to
commit four billion dollars worth of
investment 1 billion in terms of a new
plant 3 billion in terms of products
infrastructure to really move the needle
in terms of our presence in the US
market and you're spending a billion
dollars on a plant in Tennessee to
manufacture the new Passat being
unveiled today here at the detroit auto
show how would you compare manufacturing
in the United States to manufacturing in
Germany you know the u.s. is a great
place to manufacture there's a lot of
infrastructure a lot of capabilities in
terms of the engineering the process
control and in Tennessee we found a lot
of very capable people to actually be
part of the operations there and build
up our plant so we very pleased the way
the plant has come together the way the
processes are evolving and now we've got
this tremendous news of launching the
Passat today which really brings
affordable German engineering to that
midsize sedan segment for the first time
in the US so we think it's going to have
a great reception what does this
investment in US manufacturing and
really in trying to meet the sales goals
that you've said that are very lofty for
the United States what does that mean in
terms of hiring here well in the plant
itself we're in the process of hiring
2,000 people directly in the plan
independent assessments have also
identified that in the supplier base the
broader community will be another 10,000
jobs added on top of that so we see
around 12,000 jobs is really the impact
in terms of the direct consequences for
the US economy looking at VW sales goals
the goal is to sell a million vehicles
in you in the US by 2018 800,000 VW
brand 200,000 Audi's even some analysts
say that's a very lofty goal a huge jump
from where you are now and thus you
would become the world's biggest
automaker how are you going to hit those
sales numbers well we've set a very
strong vision for what we want to see as
the future of the Volkswagen Group
around the world and that means we want
to become the most successful company
it's not just about sales it's also
about customer satisfaction it's about
employee satisfaction it's about return
on the financial side of the business as
well so it's a very broad set of goals
in terms of what we want to achieve by
2018 the US market is a very different
market than elsewhere in the world
americans love their trucks they love
their suvs until gas gets to four
dollars then they don't then they go
back they're fickle consumers when it
comes to what kind of automobile they
want you worked at 40 spent years at
Ford and years at General Motors so what
did working at those two US automakers
teach you about this critical market
well you know I think it helps me to
understand what are the specifics about
the u.s. customer and the way the US
customer behaves compared to other
customers around the world well the u.s.
customer loves to shop for and purchase
a vehicle very quickly sometimes even
within the same day so in the u.s. you
have to be much quicker much more
focused you have to respond to quit
customers more quickly customers in the
u.s. use social media much more much
more engaged and so you have to engage
with them in the
medium that they want to be spoken to an
engaged in a dialogue with so US
marketplace is very transparent
competition is very intense and you have
to react very quickly and those are the
things that we're bringing to Volkswagen
in America you have to look at the broad
picture obviously
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