Volkswagen will seek to achieve its ambitious goal of 800,000 annual sales in the U.S. by 2018 without an entry in the burgeoning subcompact segment.
“The Golf and Jetta are as small as we’re going to go, for now,” a Volkswagen executive told Car and Driver.
Though recent years have seen an influx of subcompact cars from a range of automakers, Volkswagen will eschew this particular downsizing trend due to the meager profit margins traditionally associated with tiny cars. Importing Volkswagen’s Polo or up! subcompacts from Europe is likely to be a financially unfeasible proposition, and even modifying the company’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee to build the vehicles might not result in significant profits until sales in the subcompact segment take off.
For now, Volkwagen will focus on more profitable, higher-volume segments to achieve sales growth, although the company is closely monitoring market conditions and gas prices and could well bring a subcompact stateside if the necessary.
Volkwagen “could bring the Polo here tomorrow,” the company executive said.
