Volkswagen broke ground on a new engine plant in Puebla, Mexico, which is expected to come online in 2013. The $550 million plant is expected to supply engines to vehicles built at Volkswagen facilities in Mexico and Chattanooga, Tennesse.

An estimated 700 jobs will be created at the plant, along with auxiliary jobs for parts suppliers. With 435,000 vehicles made in Mexico in 2010, the country will be integral to Volkswagen’s goal of selling 1 million cars in the United States by 2018.

[Source: Left Lane News]

Toyota is projecting sales of 8 million units in 2012, according to parts suppliers who have been briefed by the auto maker. The projections do not include units sold by Toyota subsidiaries Daihatsu and Hino.

The last time Toyota sold such a volume was in 2007, when the company moved 8.42 million vehicles. Toyota expects sales of 7.48 million units in 2010 and 7.7 million in 2011.

Toyota also credited “emerging markets” as a source of growth, stating that traditional markets like North America and Europe will fall from comprising 67 percent of Toyota’s worldwide sales to less than 50 percent in two years.

[Source: Reuters]

Jonathan Browning will replace Stefan Jacoby as Volkswagen Group of America’s CEO starting next month. A veteran of Ford and General Motors, Browning joined VW in June of this year, and is expected to oversee major developments in Volkswagen’s North American operations, including their new Tennessee factory and their aim of selling 800,000 VW brand cars by 2018.

“Volkswagen will play an even stronger role in the important U.S. market going forward,” said Christian Klingler, Member of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG for Sales. “Jonathan Browning is an acknowledged expert on this market, its customers and its sales structures.”

During his tenure with the GM and Ford, Browning oversaw both the Vauxhall and Jaguar brands during the earlier part of the decade.

[Source: Volkswagen]

In advance of the Los Angeles Auto Show, where the U.S.-spec Fiat 500 will make its North American debut, the company held a dealer meeting for 400 of its franchise holders.

According to the AFP, Fiat told Chrysler dealers that it wants to open 165 showrooms in small car markets, with the goal of selling 50,000 Fiat 500′s. A statement released by the company stated that “”The new Fiat retail network will begin selling the US version of the Fiat 500 late this year, and the Fiat 500 Cabrio model in 2011.”

The 50,000 sales figure is similar to the total number of vehicles sold by MINI in the United States.

[Source: AFP]

The Japanese auto industry has always had a well-defined hierarchy, with Toyota, Honda and Nissan locked in a firmly established pecking order. But Toyota’s recent streak of quality problems has caused it to shed sales, causing a disruption in the marketplace.

Customers fleeing Toyota are helping to propel the sales numbers of both Nissan and Hyundai, with the two companies neck and neck in terms of vehicle sales, and the possibility of overtaking #2 Asian car maker Honda on the horizon.

Year-to-date, Nissan has sold 522,669 units (including Infiniti cars) while Hyundai has sold 515,376 (including Kia vehicles). While the two companies have a serious fight ahead of them, auto analysts predict that Hyundai, with its well-received ad campaigns focusing on value and their strong product lineup, will overtake Nissan by the end of 2011. That’s not to say Hyundai should get complacent; Nissan is planning an onslaught of products in the next 24 months, including the Leaf electric car, a new Quest minivan and six other unnamed vehicles.

[Source: USA Today]

As part of a world-wide recovery plan, Toyota vehicles will get a standard front end treatment designed to unify the global lineup of Toyota vehicles. The new move is dictated by head honcho Akio Toyota’s directive to make Toyota cars have more “emotional appeal”, although its hard to see how the company can inject that into its appliance-like vehicles.

Sources say that regional considerations will have to be taken into account; the basic look of the car will be the same throughout the world, but markets such as China might get more chrome, for example. The new design language will also help their smaller cars appear bigger, in a bid to further standardize designs across world markets.

[Source: Inside Line]

Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn is launching an ambitious plan to triple market share in the U.S. by 2018, with an electric vehicle and an all-new range of products designed with the U.S. market in mind at the forefront.

An electric car based on the Golf or the new Up city cars will by sold by 2013, while a hybrid Jetta and Touraeg will bow by the end of 2011. “Our goal is clear and ambitious,” Winterkorn told Automotive News yesterday at VW’s research laboratory in Palo Alto, California. “Volkswagen will be the automaker to mass produce the electric car for everyone.”

Volkswagen’s U.S. operations were shaken up by the departure of Stefan Jacoby, a 25 year veteran of VW. Jacoby’s exit left a large hole at the top of the U.S. subsidiary. Others think that VW North America and Winterkorn’s leadership will mean that the transition will be seamless.

“I don’t doubt it’s a loss,”  Mike Tyndall, an automotive specialist at Nomura Securities in London, told Business Week. “In some ways the cake has been baked and it’s almost ready for the eating.”
[Source: Automotive News, Business Week]