The Volkswagen Group delivered 4.24 million vehicles worldwide in the first eight months of this year. This represents a 4.1 percent increase compared with the same period in 2007.

Overall, Group deliveries therefore developed better than the trend on the global market (-0.4 percent)*. Even in August, a month of low deliveries, the Group delivered 448,000 vehicles worldwide (-3.0 percent), performing noticeably better than the sharply declining overall market (-9.1 percent).

“The increasingly difficult economic conditions are also presenting our Group with a challenge. We are, however, very well placed to continue our success. We have a unique brand and product portfolio, an outstanding position in the growth regions and, of course, our fuel and powertrain strategy which paves the way towards ecologically and socially compatible mobility,” Detlef Wittig, Executive Vice President Group Sales and Marketing, commented.

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Preview in 62nd IAA Commercial Vehicles Show,show Concept Pickup planed to produce in Argentina 2009.

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Porsche, whose speedy roadsters are synonymous with excitement and luxury, effectively claimed control Tuesday of Volkswagen, born as the maker of the so-called people’s car and now Europe’s largest automaker.

The move by Porsche to increase its stake in VW from 31 percent to just more than 35 percent - a controlling interest under German law - comes amid rising tensions between the two companies, as well as within the Porsche family.

Ferdinand Piech, the chairman of VW, is a cousin of Wolfgang Porsche, but the two men seem to be on a collision course, even as their two companies grow closer together. Last week, Piech skipped a crucial board meeting, giving the upper hand to Volkswagen employees who opposed Porsche’s attempts to integrate the two companies further.

“Piech effectively voted against his family, and the message is that there will be a war and we will see who is the winner,” said Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, the director of the Center for Automotive Research in Gelsenkirchen.

By upping its stake, Porsche wrote a new chapter in a saga that began three years ago, when it first acquired a 20 percent stake. Since then, Porsche’s hard-charging chief executive, Wendelin Wiedeking, has slowly asserted his smaller company’s control over the Goliath-like Volkswagen.

Now, VW’s unions fear Porsche will push through aggressive efficiency moves and reject their demand for a pay raise. A union official declined comment.

For the 71-year-old Piech, a onetime chief engineer at Porsche who has spent the past few decades at VW and its Audi subsidiary, observers say his concern is retaining VW’s engineering prowess while resisting Porsche’s more profit-oriented approach - along with preserving his  legacy.

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To the Point: The Best Golf of All Times

- Golf’s high customer value and comfort defy class distinctions

- New Golf design points the way to Volkswagen’s future

- TDI, TSI and DSG systems reduce fuel consumption by up to 28 percent

- First Golf with Adaptive Chassis and Automatic Distance Control

Volkswagen is sending a new Golf out into the world, the best of all times. The Golf is a phenomenon, regardless of its particular generation. Positioned in the compact class, this style icon defies all automotive and social class distinctions. No other car in this price segment has even come close to reaching as large a cross-section of people. The Golf is the only one that always fits right, and the new one is even better fitting.

It was perfected in every detail. It is also the quest for perfection that has elevated the styling of the Golf to a new level. The team headed up by the Group’s chief designer, the Italian Walter de Silva, has succeeded in giving the Golf a presence, a sharpness, a power that generates even more fun. Fun to look at and fun to drive. An intelligent car. Data such as an average fuel consumption of 4.5 liters per 100 kilometers for a 110 PS TDI put fuel prices in their place. Upon request, the Golf can park itself nearly automatically in the city thanks to “Park Assist”, it can maintain an ideal gap on the freeway by distance control (ACC), and at the push of a button it can transform itself from a cruiser to a sports car when the new “DCC Adaptive Chassis Control” system is on board.

Above all, the car exhibits a standard of quality never before attained in this price class. Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn, Chairman of the Board at Volkswagen AG sums it up: “This sixth generation of Golf cars will completely redefine the quality and comfort level of its class over broad categories, offering more customer value than ever before”. In Europe the new Golf will be introduced to the market in October. Following in succession will be Africa, Asia, Australia and North America.

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Ford Motor Co. lost its third-place spot in the global sales rankings for the first half of the year. So says the Volkswagen Group. Volkswagen delivered 3.31 million vehicles during the first half of 2008, up 7.2%. Ford delivered 3.22 million cars and trucks through June, down from 3.42 million vehicles during the same period a year ago.

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Sanyo, the Japanese electronics giant, said today that it is in talks with six car makers about the supply of batteries for fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles — one of few growth areas in the automotive industry.

“We are talking with more than five or six car makers on the co-development and supply of auto-use batteries,” Masato Ito, Sanyo Electric’s senior vice president, told Reuters.

Sanyo and Volkswagen have been jointly developing lithium-ion batteries as the race to the next generation of hybrid cars speeds up. Lithium-ion batteries are capable of holding more power than the nickel batteries that power the current hybrids.

Toyota plans to start producing lithium-ion batteries for its market-leading Prius next year in a joint venture with Matsushita Electric Industrial. Nissan has a joint venture with NEC to do the same.

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Debut in 2008 Sao Paulo Motor Show in Octerber for All new Gol sedan best seller in this region.

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VW Golf mk. VI was leaked before paris motorshow.

2009-volkswagen-golf-mark-6-sneak-preview

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Indian models pose beside Volkswagen India's Jetta car during its launch in Mumbai

Volkswagen, the biggest European car maker, is aiming to bag 10 percent of India’s burgeoning market within five years, a director said Monday in the business daily Handelsblatt.

“We want to move quickly in terms of volume,” VW’s president in India Joerg Mueller said.

The group currently has less than one percent of the Indian market.

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