Wolfsburg, Germany - The Volkswagen Group continues to pursue its strategy of intensifying cooperation with suppliers, and has now successfully launched the Suppliers’ Quality Forum, a further initiative concerning cooperation with suppliers. The strategy consists of three components: the Suppliers’ Conventions, the Suppliers’ Quality Forum and the Innovation Forum.

The Suppliers’ Convention, the first initiative, focused on material cost and already achieved triple-digit million savings in October of last year.

The second component, the Suppliers’ Quality Forum, was initiated by Francisco Javier Garcia Sanz, Member of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG, and Falko Schling, Director of Volkswagen Group Quality Assurance. At the Forum, 24 selected suppliers joined up with top management to form 24 teams together with cross-departmental expert groups from Volkswagen. “We will be handling quality issues with the same openness we give to cost issues in the Suppliers’ Conventions,” emphasized Garcia Sanz: “We are aiming for an open and forward-looking dialog to develop solutions for improvements.”

I tap the brake, downshift to second and throttle through rounding the Grand (formally Loews) hairpin with, if not the same precision of an F1 racecar, certainly with the goodness of its technology. Approaching the downhill stretch, which leads to Portier corner, I throttle up and again brake for the bend, looking for the correct turn-in point. As I correct for the straight, I take a moment and marvel at the mega-yacht-lined marina. My co-driver and course navigator says, “Step on it.” I oblige and proceed to paddle shift through third and fourth with rapid abandon. Track conditions are perfect; it is mid-day, the sun is shining and suddenly everything goes dark as we motor through the tunnel. My co-driver cracks his window and smiles. “Listen to that,” he says. It’s the sound of VW’s turbocharged 2.0-liter GTI at 6800 rpm echoing off the tunnel walls. Though pale in comparison to the ear-deafening scream of an F1 engine at 18,000 rpm, it’s a wonderful sound nonetheless. The location? A breath taking section of Monte Carlo’s famed Grand Prix circuit. My co-driver? None other than new VW of America boss Adrian Hallmark. We’re on hand for the international launch of VW’s fifth-generation GTi. Can a test drive possibly get any more challenging? Hardly. Can there be a better setting? Not a chance.

Read the full review here @ European Car

AUBURN HILLS, MI - March 28, 2006: The robotic Volkswagen Touareg, nicknamed ‘Stanley’, that brought home the $2 million prize at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge in October, will be featured on NOVA’s The Great Robot Race, airing tonight on PBS, March 28, at 8 p.m. ET. Stanley defeated 22 other unmanned vehicles in a rigorous, 132-mile championship race over rough desert roads, mountain trails, dry lake beds and tunnels, using only onboard sensors and navigation equipment.

The NOVA program will provide an in-depth look at the DARPA Grand Challenge and the technological innovations of the race contenders. The DARPA Grand Challenge is an annual competition and a field test intended to accelerate research and development in autonomous ground vehicles. Stanley performed flawlessly over the 132-mile Nevada course and achieved victory after six hours 35 minutes. Nearly 200 vehicles from around the world originally entered the competition. A series of semifinal competitions narrowed the final field to 23, including Stanley.

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March 23, 2006 - With VW holdin’ it down on the German-engineering tip with its new Mk5 GTI, it’s easy to forget that a sporty turbocharged VW has been on sale in the US for a few months now. Actually, “forget” may not be the correct word, as most people don’t even know that a 2.0-liter turbocharged sporty VW not named “GTI” has been on sale in the U.S. for a few months now. While the un-pimped GTI is getting a huge media blast and a whole lot of love from the automotive press, its older and larger GLI sibling has sadly been forgotten and left by the wayside. Well, we’re here to change that!

No, we didn’t just commit the atrocious act of leaving a typo on an internet page, we really did intend to type the letters “GLI”. What the GTI is to the Golf, the GLI is to the Jetta. In other words, the GLI is a GTI in a Jetta package.

Many of the GTI’s commercials like to focus on the fact that the hatch is fast and fun to drive, right? So if the GLI is a sedan-bodied GTI, it means the GLI is also a fun and fast car, right? The answer, of course, is a resounding “yes”. As with many new sporty VW/Audi vehicles, the GLI comes powered by the new 2.0-liter, 200 horsepower turbocharged engine. While we could be politically correct and rave about its relatively low emissions and 31mpg/highway fuel rating, we’d rather talk about the torque, because this 2.0 liter engine has lots of it. The GLI boasts 207 lb.-ft. of twisting force even when the engine is spinning at just 1,800 rpm. Even more impressive than that torque figure is the engine’s flat torque curve: this 207 lb.-ft. of torque is present from that magically low number of 1,800 rpm all the way up to 4,700 rpm.

Read the entire story @ IGN now!

IF ever Volkswagen needed a hero, the time is now. Sales have dropped and the Phaeton luxury car flopped. Worse, VW’s image has taken a beating from sludged-up engines, defective ignition coils and cellar-dweller reliability ratings.

All these missteps, and several others, gave the new Passat a chance to swoop in and save the day. But while Volkswagen claims to have loaded the redesigned sedan with 120 “German engineering features” - from headlamps that swivel on turns to a self-draining umbrella holder - enthusiasts are finding that something more important was left out. A German-engineered sedan like the Passat is supposed to connect the driver with the road, and this car does not.

Compared with the last-generation Passat, a practical car with impeccable road manners, the change is remarkable. While the new car has other virtues, its success will depend on whether consumers accept the fact that it is now much less of a driver’s car.

Based on my fondness for the last-generation Passat, I looked forward to spending a week in a pair of new models. Instead I ended up asking, “Whatever happened to Fahrvergnügen?” Many years ago, VW’s marketing department told us that this was the German word for driving pleasure, and that it came as standard equipment on all VW’s.

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March 22 (Bloomberg) — Germany’s DAX Index rebounded. Bayerische Motoren Werke AG rose after Morgan Stanley raised the price estimate for the carmaker’s shares. Volkswagen AG and DaimlerChrysler AG also rose.

Volkswagen rose 3.7 percent to 60.68 euros. Citigroup Inc. raised the price estimate for Europe’s biggest carmaker 19 percent to 70 euros.

SAO PAULO, Brazil — In a country that encourages ethanol production through heavy official subsidies to sugar producers, Volkswagen will become the first major manufacturer to completely convert its vehicle production mix to flex fuel.The irony is that world sugar prices have surged this year, persuading many Brazilian farmers to produce sugar rather than ethanol, according to a report in Reuters.The irony is that world sugar prices have surged this year, persuading many Brazilian farmers to produce sugar rather than ethanol, according to a report in Reuters.

VW said it planned to complete the conversion by the end of the year, phasing out production of gas-only models. All its vehicles in 2007 will be able to run on ethanol, gasoline or a mixture of the two. VW expects to build about 450,000 flex-fuel vehicles a year in Brazil, where it has long been one of the market leaders.

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