Category: VW

Volkswagen has reached an important milestone: one million vehicles sold with the DSG gearbox since its introduction in 2003.

The German car maker will quickly reach the 2 million milestone at the current pace. Last year, it built more than 400,000 units and demand is getting stronger everyday. The Kassel plant in Germany has increased its building capacity to 1,750 units per day. Today almost a quarter of every new Volkswagen model is featured with a dual-clutch gearbox.

Earlier this week, Renault has announced it will build its own dual-clutch gearbox although not launch date has been mentioned.

Day after day, car makers always seem to be announcing new production milestones. This time, Volkswagen has announced that the 100,000th Eos model had rolled off the production line.

The 100,000th unit is a silver painted Eos powered by a 148bhp 2.0-litre diesel engine hooked up to a five speed manual gear box. The car will be delivered in the UK, which the model’s largest market.

The Eos convertible is being built in Portugal in the same plant as the Seat Alhambra and Volkswagen Sharan.

VW Spokesman Andreas Meurer confirmed that the next-generation Phaeton luxury executive will return to the US.

However, the next-generation will be sold at a lower price tag and will be smaller in order not to compete with the Audi A8. Besides, the future Volkswagen saloon will share its inner structure, powertrains and suspension, with the Audi A6, but will feature a unique exterior and interior styling, and chassis tuning.

Volkswagen ceased to sell the current model as a result of poor sales in 2005. In its best year, the company never sold more than 2.000 units on the American market.

Here are the first spyshots of the VW Routan which will be unveiled at the Chicago Auto Show. With this minivan, Volkswagen aims at expanding its lineup in the US in order to increase its sales there.

The VW Routan will share its inner structure with the current Chrysler Voyager as former DaimlerChrysler and Volkswagen teamed up to reduce production cost. However, the Routan will feature unique exterior and interior styling, and powertrains.

The Routan will be built on the same production line as the Voyager in Canada, so expect Volkswagen to promote this new minivan as its sales won’t suffer from a weak dollar.

Click here to see the whole spyshot

In an interview with Automobilwoche, Volkswagen of America CEO, Stefan Jacoby, said that the German car maker has plans to produce engine and transmissions in North America in order to reduce its exposure to the weak U.S. dollar.

Stefan Jacoby said that “We [Volkswagen] will not be competitive unless we [Volkswagen] produce these components locally.“

At this early stage, he didn’t reveal where the new plant would be located, in the U.S., Canada or Mexico.

In a previous post I talked about the two awards given to Volkswagen for its TSI family engine and I mentioned that the 1.4-litre petrol engine was associated with a DSG gearbox. At that tine, I was wrong as it was only available with a manual gearbox, but I’m now right as Volkswagen has announced that its seven-speed twin clutch gearbox will be featured as on option with the 1.4-litre TSI petrol unit and the 1.9-litre TDI diesel engine on the Golf and Golf Plus models.

The DSG is an electronically controlled, twin-shaft dual-clutch manual gearbox, without a conventional clutch pedal, with full automatic, or semi-manual control. In other words, it is two separate manual gearboxes, contained within one housing, and working as one unit. Compared to an automatic gearbox, the DGS offers several advantages. It has an extremely fast shift time of 8 milliseconds when shifting to the gear the transmission is expecting, has practically no power loss, due to the use of clutches instead of a torque converter and offers a better fuel economy than the planetary geared automatic transmission and manual transmission. But it also has its problems. When shifting to a gear that the transmission did not anticipate, shift time is lengthy with a roughly time of 400ms and the DSG is heavy: 75kg vs. 47.5 for a comparable manual gearbox.

The latest iterations available on the Golf and Gold Plus adds to new features as well. Firstly, it is the first DSG for front-traverse installation. Secondly, it is the first with clutches that are not immersed in oil, but which run “dry“. This allows the latest Volkswagen DSG to achieve an even greater level of efficiency. The maximum torque that can be transmitted is up to 250 newton-meters.

The 1.9-litre TDI engine associated with the seven-speed DSG has a consumption of 0.7 litres per 100 km lower than the same engine hooked up to the six-speed DSG transmission.

This might be the biggest and most unexpected surprise at Detroit: according to rumours, Volkswagen might unveil a roadster concept car that previews a future production model whose release date remains unknown.

Dubbed Rayra, the concept car would be Volkwagen’s serious attempt to move its brand image upmarket on the American market, but it might also be a mistake. Indeed, it is said that the concept car share shares its platform with the Audi R8 and features a similar layout with a mid-engine and all-wheel drive. The car would be powered by the same 4.2-litre V8 which produces 414bhp at 7,800 rpm. The concept car would comes with an innovative anti-theft vehicle alarm system and a speed warning device.

Volkswagen doesn’t need another car derived from an Audi to build its brand image and increase its sales. The market doesn’t need another V8-powered roadster with a price starting at £75,000. At a time when regulations are stricter, Volkswagen needs to learn that power doesn’t mean fun. There is a Japanese car maker who understood it, it’s Mazda. Its Mazda MX-5 sells more and more every new-generation but no European car makes had the guts to launch a model that could compete with the small roadster. Bring the 2003 Concept R (pictured) or the 2005 EcoRacer concept car to production but don’t put roll off an umpteeth supercar.

Beyond this rumour, if Volkswagen brings the Rarya at the Detroit Motor Show, will Audi unveil the R8 roadster? Or is the Rayra the rumoured R8 roadster?

Volkswagen has received two awards in Japan for its TSI engines in the Car of the Year categories of “Most Advanced Technology Award 2008” and “Technology of the Year”.

The first prize has been awarded by Japan’s automotive journalists elect the most advanced technology while the second was elected by the jury of the Automotive Researchers’ and Journalists’ Conference.

Combining a direct injection system with a turbocharger and a supercharger, the TSI offers the power of a large engine with the displacement usually seen on small cars. The 1.4-litre petrol engine can produce 138 bhp or 168bhp. Hooked up with a DSG gearbox, the less powerful unit enables the Golf to run the 0-62mph in 8.8 seconds, achieves a top speed of 205 km/h and yet consumes an average of only 7.1 litres of fuel in urban traffic and a mere 5.7 litres on the cruise.

The small engine will be featured on the new Superb, the first large saloon to be equipped with such a tiny engine. Do not expect to see the 1.4-litre on a future Audi A4 or A6, even a Passat as company sources revealed that customers were not ready to drive executive saloons with small engines. Maybe the success of the Superb might change the minds.