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Why are there less Volkswagen models available in US than other countries?
They currently only sell 10 models in US (Jetta, Passat, New Beetle, Rabbit, Eos, GLI, GTI, R32, Tiguan, & Toureg). But they sell 13 models in South Africa, 20 in South America, 22 in Asia/Pacific, and 20 in Europe. What gives?
A lot of issues are in play here; however, its fair to say that some of the models are not well suited to the US market. The Polo, as popular as it is, is probably too small for US tastes and low horsepower motors its equipped with won't make many converts here. In addition, until just recently, VW was attempting to move the product line upscale to the near luxury area, a entry level car like the Polo would work against that.
VW also has assembly plants in various countries around the world; Brazil, Argentina, China, Spain, Russia and other places where they can make models suited to the local market. VW hasn't had an assembly plant in the US market since 1983? or so; most of the vehicles sold in the US market are made in Mexico, which also has to build vehicles for the local market.
One of the other issues the powertrain; it takes many millions of dollars to certify a vehicle to meet the emissions and safety standards that the US has (not to menion the California emissions standards that are the strictest in the world), so because of the number vehicles that VW currently sells in the US, they have a limited number of powertrain choices, which in turn limits the type and kind of vehicles that they can sell here.
Finally, since they have no assembly plant in the US, models that aren't assembled in Mexico are very expenisve to import. With the Euro now trading at close at or near 1.60 US dollars to a single Euro, VW is close to taking a loss on some vehicles sold in the US. A Passat is actually slightly cheaper in the USA, than at home with compariable equipment levels.
Having once owning stock in a now departed auto maker; I can remember them once telling us poor shareholders how they saved millions of dollars in tooling for the body shell by modifying the existing body dies for the "new car." Ford, it was reported, spent over 1 billion dollars in development and tooling costs to develop the 1986 Mercury Sable and Ford Tarus models: if it had failed in the market placed Ford wouldn't be with us today.
Hope this gives you some insight into why the US market doesn't get some models sold overseas.
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