Production is currently scheduled for mid-2010, but VW UK’s Caddy product manager Gemma Cox said negotiations are ongoing with the factory to bring that date forward. The Caddy will kick-start the range, but Cox also confirmed VW is looking at whether a BlueMotion Transporter would work. “With BlueMotion originating in the car range, we need to look at whether that’s the right way to develop the commercial vehicle range,” she told our sister magazine BusinessCar .
Cutting van CO2 is becoming pressing as suspicion mounts that commercial vehicle CO2 testing, and therefore taxation based on emissions, might not be too far away. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that the Government is going for the low-hanging fruit,” said VW CV boss Simon Elliott. “We’re lobbying for a fair and equitable way of taxing on CO2. People buying our vehicles are doing so for business reasons. A system has to be fair and equitable otherwise it’s just another tax on business and that’s not palatable.”
Elliott said VW’s work to maintain residual values and increase the brand prestige on its CV range will pay dividends in what will be a difficult 2009. “Our problem in the fleet world is deciding what business we do and don’t want to do,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we won’t take the opportunity to take new business as it’s offered to us and we’re already talking to a significant number of people we’ve not done business with before.
“We’re having conversations with lots of customers asking if we want to do more business in 2009. They appreciate what we’re doing to try and protect residual values and the brand, and they’ve had trouble recently disposing of products where the brand has been distressed.”