Top 10 VW up! competitors under €4000

European auto makers have the attitude to increase production with very cheap model. Volkswagen wants introduce new model in 2015 with very low price. We will see if it can beat the following competitors especially from India and China. Actually not with price. According to Handesblatt message the price should start from 6000 EUR.

The proposals for cheap VW are:

• Volkskarre 
• VW Cheapless
• VW Billigo
• Subvolkswagen
• VW Mikro
• Fussvolkswagen
• VW KdF (Klimaschutz durch Freudlosigkeit)
• VW Piccolo

VW Competitors are not able to sell on european market. Following compitors doesn't meet safety and emission norms. Here is the list:

1. Chery QQ3 - 3690 EUR
   
2. Chana Benni Mini - 3580 EUR
   
3. Alto STD  -  3570 EUR
   
4. Haima Prince - 3560 EUR
   
5. Daewoo Matiz - 3500 EUR
   
6. Omni Cargo LPG  - 3190 EUR
   
7. Maruti 800 Std - 2979 EUR
   
8. Jiangnan TT - 2496 EUR
   
9. Alto Zotye - 2256 EUR 
   
10. Nano - 2043 EUR
    

VW Up! owner's age graph - How old is the main driver of UP!

Poll Question: How old is the main driver of your UP!
Poll Choice	Poll Statistics
Under 21	[8.19%]
21-29	[23.68%]
30-39	[21.64%]
40-49	[22.81%]
50-59	[14.33%]
60-69	[5.85%]
70 and above	[3.22%]
I'm not telling!	[0.29%]

VW summons cars of new small family back to car services

German car maker Volkswagen is going to check about 43 thousand  cars from New Small Family made in this year. VW's slovak plant made a mistake in assembling cars of line called "New Small Family". To this group belongs Volkswagen Up!, Skoda Citigo and Seat Mii.

43  thousand car owners should visit car services - these are cars produced from begin of this year till March/13/2013. VW gave a reason to fix airbags. In these car could be central processing unit wrong configured for side-airbags sensors. By accident airbag is late or no activated by special conditions.

The owners of  Volkswagen Up!, Skoda Citigo and Seat Mii were officialy invited to car services for a short visit, this issue should be repaired during few minutes. Official VW sources says not more than half an hour will stay car owner is service.

VW up! GT 2013 - sharp kid finally goes into production

Head of research and development of Volkswagen confirmed at the Paris Motor Show in 2012 that pocket hot hatch VW up! GT will go into production. The deam comes true.

Early in year 2012 appeared speculative information that Volkswagen gives the  green to sport model built on the foundations of urban mini up! Ulrich Hackenberg, in Wolfsburg responsible for the development of new models revealed that small GT actually start selling.


 

 














To refresh your memory recall that fast toy gets a turbocharged inline three-cylinder 1.0 TSI with an output of 110 hp and maximum torque of 175 Newton meters. The unit will be coupled with a six-speed manual transmission and a weight of only 885 kg stretches up! the hundred in 8.5 seconds and will go up to 195 km/h. The manufacturer moreover boast a combined consumption of 4.5 liters per 100 km.

The exact details of construction are unknown, but surely we can expect reduced and tighter suspension, bigger wheels, stronger brakes and bodykit corresponding to the original concept. The cab then tweaks better contoured seat. In addition to fittest model up! Hackenberg also confirmed its electric version of a model powered by natural gas. All three then arrive next year.

VW is starting offensive with CNG city cars

Car maker VW has experiences with CNG power supply over 20 years. But the share of CNG engines is not so wide, VW has got big expectations with new small model which belongs to new small family Eco UP! Buyers of Eco Up! will have car with cheap daily costs and ideal car for city traffic.

The popularity of cars with CNG is increasing is Europe from year to year. The reasons are the prices of fuel (diesel, petrol). More constructing exclusive models like CNG car models  have no success on market because of lasting economics crisis  with small demand for new cars and low buying activity. The additional costs for CNG version are quite high and customers choose mostly traditional variant with diesel or petrol.

VW already makes CNG cars two decades, but mostly for high-prices and commercial cars. In the VW offer were CNG models - Passat, Touran and Caddy. Now new VW Eco Up! will be in this group.

With VW Eco Up! there is still the disadvantage of higher buying price. The higher price has very short return time. Five door Eco Up! has the price about 10.800 EUR what is 2.400 more than basic model with 1.0 engine and 44kW output.

The basic 1.0 has about 4.5l/100km consuption, Eco Up! about 2.9kg/100km. It means that  100km with Eco Up! costs only 2.76 EUR vs 6.30 EUR with petrol version. So the owner has the higher buying price returned after about  6800km, what is yearly amount of km for occasional driver. The pizza delivery service will have returned money maybe in the first month.

Seat Mii and lack of informations

Seat Mii is third in order of car model in the new small family of Volkswagen Group. Mii was in sale first in home country of SEAT - in Spain. Starting of sale only in Spain causes almost zero market share in Europe. Besides this in Spain rests financial crisis and the sale of Seat Mii is not so big as expected.

According to car sales in 2012 Seat Mii has landed as number 149 in sales amount (in year 2011 got number 294). We have to mention that  for Seat Mii and its brothers VW Up! and Skoda Citigo that was first full year in the market. The best position has VW Up! on #31, Citigo was near Seat Mii but better on number #122.

source: http://bestsellingcarsblog.com/

VW UP crossover production is very likely

According to official VW press release concern would like make a new small family wider with new crossover model.  Handelsblatt newspaper announced that VW is thinking about crossover model since positive reactions to concept cross up! Automaker answered it very evasively to question about crossover - We follow everything about SUV. SUV are pretty interesting for us.

Manager of slovak factory of VW, where is this model build, says the production platform is prepared for wide range of models, not just for one. Currently this news have no details about selling date of crossover up. It is likely that price will be bellow 20.000€.