In a message dated 9/5/00 8:54:59 PM Central Daylight Time,
mark_hb@hotmail.com writes:

> They have to consider
>  their market. BMW, Mercedes, and Porsche have vehicles made for people
with
>  more money, so those companies can spend more money engineering their
>  engines. Volkswagen is a car for the masses, for the people. If they
>  engineered their engines to the same degree, then the masses could no
longer
>
>  afford their Volkswagens.

You also have to consider the fact that VW sells alot more of any given
engine vs. BMW, Mercedes, and Porsche.  How many engines does it take to have
a return on investment?  If you invest 6.5 million on an engine, and only
make 20,000 a year, that's an expensive engine, invest 6.5 million on an
engine design and make 250,000 a year (how many 2.0L engines does VW make a
year world wide???), that doesn't seem so bad.  Porsches aren't expensive
only because of the performance and prestigue, they're expensive because of
the low volume (price a Ferrari or Lambo lately, VERY low production #'s)...
spread out the R&D over more cars, the price per car goes down (thus all the
engine sharing between the branches of GM, or Ford ect).

Heath