In the news: Audi and Volkswagen have recently opened their central depot, the Audi Volkswagen Middle East parts centre at the Jebel Ali Free Zone or Jafza for short. The warehouse facility was worth $10 million contain an initial stock of 40,000 parts including of course the popular lines of auto parts sold by the automaker like the Volkswagen radiator hose and others. The total worth of all these parts is $7 million and is tracked through a dedicated on-site management team.

The opening of the Audi Volkswagen Middle East Parts Centre was celebrated in a grand ceremony at the Jafza site and was attended by prominent personalities like Sheik Majid Bin Saeed bin Rashid Al Nuaimi, Chief of Amiri Court of Ajman Jamal Majid Bin Thaniyah, Vice-Chairman Dubai World and Group CEO Ports and Free Zones World and Salma Hareb, CEO of Jafza and Economic Zones World. Also present at the ceremony were Ernst Hasbach who is the managing director of Audi Volkswagen Middle East FZE and Klaus Hellmann, Board Member, Hellmann Worldwide Logistics.

Bin Thaniyah at his speech during the ceremony has congratulated the effort of the Volkswagen group for their successful endeavors and wished them all more success in their latest venture. Here are excerpts from Bin Thaniyah’s speech: (more…)

German luxury make Audi is growing by leaps and bounds. In 2010, the brand sold more than 100,000 units in the profitable, but competitive U.S. market, its best year ever. Audi still trails its German rivals BMW and Mercedes, selling less than half of what they sell in the United States, but the brand is closing that gap.

Audi has a lot to celebrate besides record sales. At the 2011 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, the 2012 Audi A6 sedan won “Best Production Vehicle,” one of several awards certain to be bestowed on this stylish all-new sedan. The 2012 model goes on sale in spring 2011.

Booming Demand

Demand for Audi products has been a boom for parent Volkswagen AG, but it presents a problem for the automaker. That problem is U.S. assembly capacity which currently stands at zero. Volkswagen last operated an assembly plant in Pennsylvania, closing it in the 1990s as demand and quality problems dogged the operation. In spring 2011, an all-new assembly plant will go online in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but it will only build the Volkswagen Passat, a midsize sedan. No American production capacity means that Audi must import 100 percent of its vehicles unlike BMW and Mercedes who operate plants in South Carolina and Alabama respectively. (more…)