Family Feud Brewing Between Porsche and Audi
You would assume that when companies get folded into a larger company, in this case Porsche and Audi into VW, that the managing head of the company would get everyone to play nicely with one another since now they are on the same team.
Well, the Germans at the moment are not playing nicely, and if it was a parent and children, they probably would have been separated and told to go to their rooms. But since they are companies that can’t be separated anymore, the internal bickering has reached a boiling over point.
Automobile has reported that Porsche and Audi have been fighting with one another over the last year due to R&D issues and each of them not liking the way the other is planning for the future.
Audi isn’t happy with the way Porsche is planning the next generations of both the SUV line-up and larger cars, and Audi aren’t happy with how Porsche is planning the next generation of sports cars which Porsche now has complete control over.
Basically, the Volkswagen Group assigned a set of tasks for each of the company’s that would streamline the process of R&D and hopefully cut costs. But because each of the companies has their own vision for the future of their specific brand, no one can come to a consensus on how to proceed.
One doesn’t like this way, while the other doesn’t like the other. Right now the pair of automakers are heading down a direction that would make them look very much like GM in the mid 90s with 17,000 different cars and platforms all competing with one another and driving R&D up to the moon, and that didn’t exactly work out for GM.
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Photos via VAG