Automotive News Europe - May 2019 - 12

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS EUROPE

Q&A

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VW sales chief outlines launch plans for first member of new EV family

We expect the ID to help us conquest
new customers for the brand but a market leader such as VW will always have
substitution effects. Those are calculated in advance of the project and our
estimates of customers's migration -- for
example from a Polo to a T-Cross -- tend
to be pretty accurate in the end.

he Volkswagen brand is getting ready
to launch what may eventually become the industry's top-selling family of
electric vehicles. The first model, a hatchback that currently goes by the name
ID, will go into production in November.
Automotive News Europe Correspondent
Christiaan Hetzner spoke with the brand's
chief sales executive, Jürgen Stackmann,
about the demand he expects for the first
member of VW's new EV lineup.
When can customers start purchasing the new EV, which will debut at
the Frankfurt auto show?
We will start our pre-booking for the ID
on May 8. Deliveries will begin in summer
2020. We will start with a Launch Edition
version that comes with a package of features we believe will see the highest demand. I think there is a good chance the
Launch Edition will be fully booked before
the car is actually shown to the public at
the Frankfurt show in September. The actual sales process for these pre-bookers
is scheduled to start after the auto show
and will be carried out by our dealers.
Why did you decide to start with just
one variant?
When you have a new model underpinned
by a new platform and built on a new assembly line, you have to focus on one
configuration initially. Otherwise the complexity is too great and neither the factory
nor its suppliers can handle the ramp up.
In that sense it is not unlike a combustion
engine car. You would not go straight to
market with all powertrain options either.
Will you take a similar approach as
Tesla, first manufacturing the most
expensive versions and then eventually working your way down?
We won't start with low-spec cars, since
that is not typically what our customers order. Only a very small number of
people buy the Golf in its base version.
But we also won't wait a couple of years
before bringing the entry model. The ID
is meant to be affordable.
Are you concerned there might be a
shortage of cars because ID produc-

www.autonewseurope.com

How important will it be to the ID's
residual value to have updateable
features?
This will keep the vehicle fresh, so there
will be a positive contribution. We first
have to gain some experience with updateable vehicles before we can really
quantify that, however, so for the moment we are being very conservative in
our forecasts.

Meet the sales boss
❚ NAME: Jürgen Stackmann
❚ TITLE: Volkswagen brand Board

Member for Sales and Marketing

❚ AGE: 57
❚ MAIN CHALLENGE: Juggling the

dual launches of the full-electric
ID and new-generation Golf.

tion capacity will only reach 100,000
next year at the Zwickau, Germany,
factory, which won't finish retooling
its other assembly line until sometime in 2021?
I expect to sell every car we will be able
to build. We invited our European dealers to Wolfsburg to see the car and they
came away with volume requests greater
than our estimates when we first started
the project, which is great. Please remember, though, these come from our
retail partners - we have no hard data on
actual customer demand at this point.
How many sales of the upcoming
eighth-generation Golf will be cannibalized by your new EV?

Does that mean you won't assume
particularly high residuals so you can
aggressively price leasing contracts?
Our goal is to ensure the vehicle is affordable without incentives. But we need to
change consumer perceptions on price.
Roughly 40 percent of our customers
in Europe are corporate in the broader
sense. They focus on the total cost of
ownership, not just the initial price but
the resale value, insurance costs, maintenance and fueling. We need to introduce
this concept among our private customers, since we are certain this shows the ID
is just as affordable as an equivalent Golf.
VW brand senior managers estimate
that roughly 10,000 units of the electric Buggy would need to be sold annually for at least four years at a price
of more than 40,000 euros to make
sense. Does that sound realistic?
We have a firm intention to do a project
where we could decide on these kinds of
metrics. But we won't make a final decision until we have completed the feasibility study. Demand for such a car would be
very exclusive as it would appeal most to
customers who already have several cars
at home and want something with an entirely different look. There is no rational
argument for buying it. The sole purpose
ANE
of this car is fun.

MAY 2019

http://www.autonewseurope.com

Automotive News Europe - May 2019

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