The race for the number one spot can’t get any more tighter and glamorous than this!
The trio of German car manufacturers - BMW, Audi and Mercedes - have locked their horns at almost every important luxury car market in the world. The aim is to become the number one luxury carmaker in the world and that is easier said than done.
The current leader BMW is ready with a sleuth of products to make sure that its leadership position is unharmed. Audi has announced that it is ready to invest 17 billion dollars till 2016 to dethrone BMW by 2020. Clearly, being part of one of the most cash rich conglomerate, the Volkswagen Group, procuring the investment amount shouldn’t be a major problem.
A bulk of the investment ($10.6 billion) will be spent on Audi’s primary facilitates in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm. In addition to primary facilities, Audi will expand their assembly plants in Gyor, Hungary and Foshan, China and open a new one in San José Chiapa, Mexico.
A big chunk of the investment will be used to develop super efficient engines, innovating in electric mobility areas and developing lightweight design/construction techniques. Of course. The product development cost will be shared by the entire VW group which plans to invest 65 billion dollars on products, plants and equipment over the next three years to dethrone Toyota, the current number automaker in the world, by 2018.
Most European automakers such as PSA and Fiat are struggling to survive in the current economic gloom. They have shelved their whole vehicle programmes, engine technologies research and platform revamps to make sure that they stay alive during these tough times.
But Audi, on the other hand, has plans to sell over 2 million cars and SUVs by 2020. Such aggressive investment plans in the current economic scenario does explain how bullish Audi is about its future.
[Source: Bloomberg.com]
