Why would they do this?
News just in from Europe and shared by Reuters saying that the Volkswagen Group which owns both Bentley and Audi plans to make the British luxury carmaker Bentley a subsidiary of its Audi division as it seeks economies of scale among its many high-end brands. This was first reveled by German trade publication Automobilwoche which reported this on the 25th of September 2020.
This news is no surprise as recently Volkswagen reorganized its hyper-car luxury brand Bugatti, Lamborghini and also Ducati to optimize manufacturing cost.
Bentley, for now overseen by the head of Volkswagen’s Porsche business, Oliver Blume, will from next year be part of Audi, where Volkswagen group Chief Executive Herbert Diess believes it has more potential, Automobilwoche cited company sources as saying.
Part of the proposed working relationship would include using Audi technology for a new compact Bentley SUV which will be slightly smaller and with battery electric power to meet future urban European city requirements.
Bentley is on course to match or even better its last year’s global vehicle sales despite closing its factory due to Cobid-19. Bentley sold 11,006 cars last year, according to company figures and it could see a possible 11,100 units sold globally by the end of 2020. Seeing the success of the Porsche Macan (compact luxury SUV), Bentley will be releasing a compact super luxury SUV to compete with the Aston Martin DBX and also the Porsche Macan with petrol and also full electric drive. Audi already has the e-Tron SUV’s and the same platform could be used for a super luxury version using a Bentley badge and cabin experience.
Volkswagen, which declined to comment on the report, is reviewing the future of its high-performance brands Lamborghini, Bugatti and Ducati motorcycles as part of broader quest for more economies of scale as it shifts to mass producing electric cars.
Meanwhile, Volkswagen management is also working on plans to prepare its supercar brand Lamborghini for a stock market listing as they have seen the success of Ferrari when they did the same years ago.
Volkswagen management is still also looking for a a new owner for its only motorcycle brand, Ducati. Yes, the Bologna, Italy based superbike company is still doing well globally and even in Malaysia, despite Covid-19. The Ducati global sales have been quite good with 38.847units sold (-10.9 per cent) year to date September 2020, in sharp recovery after the -17.7 per cent and -27.1 per cent reported respectively in Q1 and Q2, projecting a full year score near 49.000 sales, which is down by just 7.5 per cent.
