What "Missed opportunities" were we discussing?

Bryan

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Florian Speier
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 11:21 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: VW's New Chattanooga Plant

Sorry guys, I just dont get it. Why are you all talking about missed
opportunities from VW?
Have you ever compared prices for VWs between the german website and the
american one? Are you aware that 1euro is 1,60Dollar?
There is absolutely no incentive for VW to sell any car in the United States
that is built in Europe. I am reading autoblog, and there are vw dealers in
the u.s. complaining that they get hardly ever a tiguan and then its a badly
configured one. Hmmmm, lets see. The Tiguan starts in Germany at 27200Euro,
that is 43520 USD, and there is a six month wait list. Ok, these figures
include 19% sales tax, but still... in the U.S. it starts at 23000USD. If
you were the automaker, would you ship over any tiguans besides some
mis-configured custom order that got cancelled?
You can do the same comparison on most other vehicles, try the Touareg for
example......
One way VW deals with this is by selling its cheapest to build crappiest
engines stateside. MAybe its also the only ones they manage to build in
their mexiko plant. Ever compared the lineup of gas engines available for
the Rabbit/Golf in Germany and the u.s.? The U.S. only has the 2.5l, while
there are a plenty 1.4-1.6l engines available in germany with the same
horsepower.
Really, at this point VW can only keep a foot in the market at the lowest
cost possible and wait until the euro drops or they have a decent stateside
plant.

FLorian