Fortune: Volkswagen: Das auto giant

Volkswagen: Das auto giant

I hear a lot about VW’s big dreams of being the world’s largest auto maker. Here is a great look about how VW is managed.

I drive a VW now and my car before this one was a VW. That’s more than 6 years as a VW owner. My biggest issue has been what seems to be the lack of advancement in engine technology and fuel efficiency. My 2006 engine was almost identical to my 2009 and if I bought today, still the same engine. While I love the turbo engine, I think with the advances of the last 6 years they could deliver something with similar performance with a bump in MPG.

Reading about how things work behind the scenes makes my issue with lack of engine innovation unsurprising. The focus now is standardizing so they can lower their costs across all their lines. They also appear to be very risk averse which is leading to very boring design decisions. Their focus has been on diesel, which excites me little. Finally it looks that hybrids are coming and I’ve read good things about the Jetta Hybrid. However, doing something interesting with a car I’d want to drive (Golf or Tiguan) is going to be difficult to do before I’m ready to buy again. Which will probably be a year from now.