In light of buyer and owner comments that competitors’ vehicles are kept fresher, VW will update its lineup more frequently, in order to meet the demands of its American audience.
We don’t know if this will translate into models even more different to those sold in Europe and elsewhere, but an effort will be made in this respect.
Edmunds says the strategy will be applied along with the next-gen Passat (due in 2018) and Jetta (due in 2017) models, the maker’s top two US sellers.
The source piece quotes Marc Trahan, who is vice president for quality and service at Volkswagen Group of America. He said: “We want to keep the models fresh and attractive. One of the things we have heard from our dealers and also from the market is that the cars aren’t being freshened like some of our competitors.”
Concretely, VW will move from launching an all-new model every seven years to doing so every five, like many other manufacturers are doing nowadays – some are even doing it quicker than that.
Times are changing and VW’s tried and true tactics are beginning to show their limitations; taken in isolation, the way they go about creating/launching new models would still be fine, but in the context of the quickly evolving US market, where Korean manufacturers are constantly upping the ante, it would be unwise to ignore the signs any longer.
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