Do not Anticipate a Volkswagen Pickup within the U.S. Anytime Quickly

There have been rumblings of Volkswagen promoting a pickup in America for a very good bit now, as a result of for those who’re an automaker and also you take a look on the American market, it positive looks like even the weakest pickup truck effort might get in on the insatiable American urge for food for pickup vans. Effectively, you would possibly suppose, anyway, as a result of go ask Nissan how promoting the Titan goes. That’s, maybe, Volkswagen’s worry, too, in not providing a pickup for America, in that promoting no pickup could be higher than promoting a mediocre slow-selling pickup.

Studying between the traces, that’s what I’ve surmised no less than from feedback made by VW executives this week in Los Angeles, who had been there for a present that featured autos. Automotive Information was there, too, together with a “small group of journalists” to speak with Thomas Schäfer, a world Volkswagen govt, a couple of attainable VW pickup based mostly on the platform being developed for Scout. Schäfer delivered some actual speak.

“In the mean time, our deal with the lineup doesn’t embody it,” Schäfer, who began his new job three months in the past, instructed a small group of journalists at an off-site roundtable dialogue earlier than the Los Angeles Auto Present. “In the mean time, we now have a transparent lineup throughout the second half of this decade. Then once more, within the American market, for those who don’t play in sure segments, then it’s a must to keep in a sure market share space. However the query of [VW’s new Rugged SUV platform] shouldn’t be our precedence in the meanwhile.”

Auto Information additionally quotes Pablo Di Si, who’s the boss of VW in North America, who seems like a man who’s positively begging company to promote a pickup right here.

Di Si, who headed up VW’s Latin American area earlier than taking on North America on Sept. 1, spoke lovingly in regards to the Tarok, the Latin America-developed compact unibody pickup idea proven on the 2019 New York auto present. The budget-friendly idea took benefit of VW’s world platform technique to primarily use the elements bin to craft a Tiguan-sized all-wheel-drive pickup with a transformable mattress completely suited to surfers in Brazil to hold their boards, Di Si defined.

“That was my child,” Di Si instructed Automotive Information. He stated in his early conferences with VW sellers within the U.S., the Tarok has come up as a risk for the market. “It’s on us. I handle VW, and we now have an enormous and nice portfolio of SUVs,” he stated. “There’s no pickup right here — but. However time will inform. I feel we now have the data. I feel the phase is related. And we’re going to play the sport and see the place that sort of takes us.”

The folks in Wolfsburg who truly make these selections in all probability discover all of this very cute, although Di Si can be preemptively organising a handy excuse for the subsequent time he wants to elucidate to his bosses why VW gross sales in America are down. We might actually use a truck to promote right here, he’ll say, and everybody will nod solemnly. VW sellers, too, will say that they positive might use a pickup to promote, and everybody will ignore them, as a result of they’re sellers. Does the American truck shopping for public truly desire a VW pickup? We’ll discover out in the future, years from now. Or we gained’t!