Volkswagen announced today a new initiative to increase the brand’s profitability. The program comes with casualties as it will shift VW’s focus from lower-volume models to higher ones, meaning cars like the Arteon are dead.
The automaker didn’t say what other low-selling models are on the chopping block, but it specifically called out the Arteon. Its demise comes as little surprise as sales for the stylish sedan fell nearly 69 percent in 2022 to just 1,742 in the US, a fraction of the brand’s overall sales that were just over 301,000 last year. Sales for the Arteon were up through the 2023’s first quarter by over 1,000 percent, although VW sold just 528 of them, so it’s not exactly making a roaring comeback.
