Originally Posted by
RacingManiac
Ferrer as Matra said, much of the cost is in the R&D phase, much of the stuff, just because the car may look different, it does not mean that they are different. Suspension components stamping, casting mold, brake system , backbond/subframe tooling, all those are being shared by various model in these cars designed for all the market. The key for an OEM to do when they started out to do this process of unifying their design, is to get all the differing standard around, and build one out of those, one that will satisfy the basic criteria in required testing for localization. Then you just need to do one. As opposed to going through all of the EV/DV whatever testing for 5-6 different cars of the same size, you do it for 1, and that is the bulk of the cost for a development process. Yes you will still have localized spending, but that cost is much less vs having local doing all of their own R&D work. You can have the EU car tuned for response and NA car tuned for isolation, with US car runs on some big Gas V6 and EU car run a 4 cylinder diesel. They can still be sharing the suspension parts, back bone chassis, braking system, driveline components, gas tanks...etc
In VW's case too, yes Jetta in US has torsion beam axle and EU has a IRS, but you can bet you can take the beam straight out and swap for a EU IRS if needed(and in the case of the GLI, which is still build in the same plant, they are doing exactly that, what VW is saving is the BOM cost, reduced part count to boost margin). While Passat now is being heavily regionalized, VW is probably justifying that through the size of the US mid-size market....thats where the bulk of the US market is. At the same time the US Passat still shares much of the parts with the rest of the world car, just riding on a longer unibody....knowing VW they may well find another use for that chassis outside of US...