Seat Future

[the old man]

dont know if this is the correct place to post this.
talking with a few guys at work re Volkswagen group and the future and the following comments were made.

Seat are being measured on their performance as they were losing money two years ago. VAG group need to see an improvement....

Porsche have taken to law to get legalities overturned that prevented VW group being taken over. They are now the largest single shareholder and could make a bid to takeover VW. If they did Seat would be more vulnerable to closure.

Any comments??

 

[Moley RUFC]

cheaper cars.

Dont worry about it, its all bollocks. Its been discussed on here loads on various threads.

Maybe we will all be driving Porsche Leon in the future

 

[Tam]

There was a discussion a while ago about VW saying it would ditch the seat brand if the company did not become self-sustainable / profitable by 2009.

The results posted this year shows that they should be profitable by the end of this year, one year ahead of their plans and this should keep VW happy http://www.seatcupra.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=744&Itemid=9 s

 

[phil3012]

Maybe we will all be driving Porsche Leon in the future

There have been plenty of join VW Porsche ventures in the past...

914 was joinly built by the 2 companies

924 was a joint venture between both but dropped by VW at the last minute, I think some models may actually use a VW engine.

VW Beetle was designed by Dr Porsche

Didn't some of the original Ibizas have Systeme Porsche written down the side?

 

[ZBOYD]

The original Ibiza's were Fiat designed bodies, however the engine was an original Porsche design. Yet they were actually licenced copies and manufactured in Spain, so technically they weren't that good. Though they were a sound enough car, the build quality was not great. Once VW took over, the brand was rapidly turned around, and their rallying successes in the 90's brought them into the public psyche more.

 

[the old man]

German Press

More recent issues have changed things since the previous posts
The information I got from the German press (Die Welt and Das Spiegel) as follows:-

On 23rd October 2007 the law protecting VW from takeover was repealed.
Porsche have now increased their shareholding to 34%
The German region of Saxony owns 21% of VW
This effectively stops anyone outside of Germany taking over the group.
The region of Saxony will probably support a Porsche takeover.
Porsche have also stated that they feel the whole group is run inefficiently and could be more profitable.
VW have said that Seat have to be as profitable as Skoda by 2009 and narrowly escaped a closure vote by the VW board in October 2007.
Porsche have said that if they take over they would close Seat.

I wonder if seat UK would like to comment....

 

[Muppet]

So whats the short/long term affect for people who own a seat?

 

[ZBOYD]

What's funny about this, is that no other press organisations have picked up on the SEAT element? Last time SEAT's future was called into doubt around 18 months ago, nearly every business media outlet covered the news.

The business model Audi now have in place at SEAT, appears to be turning the business around. SEAT is a profitable business, SEAT are not MG Rover where they made a loss on every car they sold. The UK is one of SEAT's strongest markets (fact).

For Porsche/VW to close SEAT at the drop of a hat, will cost them an astronomical amount of money. More likely they would be looking for a buyer.

But as profits are already ahead of forecasts this year, and another wedge of money has been pumped into a state of the art design studio. Hardly the kind of thing a struggling business does.

The trouble with VAG is Germany. In my opinion, wages are too high versus profits, they like Skoda because they pay the workers much less than their German and Spanish counterparts. It's one of the reasons they were after Proton recently, as a foothold into the Far East volume market and another cheap source of labour.

I fear a lot of the press coming out of Germany is scare-mongering on a grand scale.

 

[chrisboyle999]

 

[phil3012]

I've read in a few places that the Golf is actually very bad for the VW Group at the moment.

Apparently it takes something like twice as long to build the current Golf than something like a Leon, which is driving the costs up and probably partially explains the high retail price. The high wages in Germany also add to this.

The current Golf is supposed to be getting replaced next year 2 years ahead of the normal cycle to address the build time issue, although I've not read anything about it recently.

 

[mister.c.]

Hell im taking this thread off topic but it wont be the first time its happened in the history of the internet.

Phil - FYI about the golf
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/autoexpressnews/213369/volkswagen_golf.html

 

[Muppet]

Looks like all the golf's have for the past 10 years, at least do something different !

 

[SeatLion]

The only problem in SEAT is the current Toledo and the solution is this: http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=125408

Germans are now happy beacuse the Toledo doesn't steal clients away from VW (Passat) and Audi (A4). Great imposed design!

 

[Xe]

I've seen pics in a magazine recently of the back on a new Seat car for 2009, however you can only see the back and it was just a clay model, all the other pice were covered up. Looked quite nice. Don't ask me which mag it was as I can't remember