Talk:Volkswagen Group/Archives/2014

More passenger automobiles than any other manufacturer in the world.

I removed the unsourced statement that VW "in 2012 manufactured more passenger automobiles than any other manufacturer in the world." I already had removed the (patently false) statement that GM was the largest producer of passenger vehicles. According to OICA, VW built the world's most "cars" in 2012, but not the world's most "passenger vehicles." The term "passenger vehicle" is quite elastic across the world, so are "cars" and "LCV." In the U.S. most pickup trucks, and definitely all SUVs are used as passenger vehicles, despite being classified as trucks. Hence the term "light vehicle" that encompasses both. The rest of the world does not have the light vehicle count. I recommend to stay away from making claims on the basis of "passenger vehicles" which are not always backed up by sound data. In any cases, automakers are rated on their total output across all segments and classes. I also recommend not to go overboard on putting too much complicated detail into the intro. BsBsBs (talk) 14:49, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Largest car company by revenue

I rolled back the claim the Volkswagen was the largest car company by revenue. It used Wikipedia as a source. This is not allowed. Please provide a reliable source for the claim. Thank you.BsBsBs (talk) 20:28, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

2013 financial data

The infobox has updated financial data (thank you) reflecting 2013. However, the references pointed to an annual report for 2011, published in 2013. I have spot-checked the new data, and they appear to faithfully reflect a press release from 2/21/2014. I have group-referenced all new financial data to this release. The 2013 annual report should appear mid-March, and links should be updated then.BsBsBs (talk) 05:15, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Data

I updated the current global OICA and ACEA EU27 data. OICA data are current for 2012, ACEA for 2013. I took out the market share from OICA. OICA does not list it, and I no longer fell comfortable recalculating it, which could be WP:OR.

FYI, the 2011 EU27 data given by the article were considerably wrong. ACEA gives Volkswagen's 2011 deliveries as 3,167,098 and not as 3,677,417 as listed. The PSA and Renault data were likewise wrong. Also, please note that OICA lists passenger and commercial vehicle separately. Numbers should not be added silently, as this would be WP:OR.

Whole Article

The whole article needs a considerable spring cleaning. The intro suffers from bloat, a lot of stuff should be brought down. Many numbers are hopelessly outdated, or simply wrong. I help, but not all by myself. Any volunteers? Please always be on the lookout for "sneak vandals" who change numbers slightly.

The "Old" Headquarters

I removed the "old" from the headquarters in the infobox. There is no new HQ. Currently, the "Hochhaus" is being refurbished, personnel and management are in a new building nearby. Once the revamp is done, they will be back. Details in German here.BsBsBs (talk) 11:28, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Volkswagen categories

"Category:Volkswagen vehicles" and five other VW-related categories were nominated to be renamed to "Category:Volkswagen Group vehicles" and such on Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2014_August_15#Volkswagen_categories and I opposed the proposals as copied below:

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• Oppose. Armbrust, I understand the position, but this is a far more compicated issue we are dealing with than what's covered in your rationale.
  

First of all, "Volkswagen Group" which is the translation of "Volkswagen Konzern" in German, is not a legal name, and the definition (what belongs and what doesn't) is not officially published and is up to Volkswagen AG to decide/change without formal announcements (without us knowing), and if a definition is somehow established for Wikipedia Category and Article Title purposes (like Volkswagen Group is a "group of brands including A,B,C", or "group of companies including D,E,F"), commonname and disambiguation justification must be established for the defined group.

Secondly, the distinction among the group (group of companies, makers, products, brands, services, etc.), the maker (some VW vehicles are made by Toyota and other contracted makers), the brand (For WikiProject Brands, VW brand covers much broader products/services than just vehicles, e.g. oils, accessories, financial services, etc.), the company (treatment of holding company, 50%-owned subsidiary, etc.) and the vehicles (historical lineage before/after the merger/takeover, OEM, knockdown assembly, etc.) is not clear in Wikipedia category policy, convention on car maker article titles, or content policy (on what to include/exclude in what articles in a group). So "what to base grouping/categorization on" needs to be decided, where each approach (company-centric, brand-centric, product/service-centric, etc.) has pros and cons for Wikipedia purposes.

Thirdly, Porsche SE(not Porsche AG) has become the controlling owner of Volkswagen AG, so is now the top tier 'company' in the "group of companies" (so "Porsche SE Group" is logical in company-centric categorization), and is the owner of Porsche brand. This is a very rare case where the carmaker, Porsche AG, is not the owner, but is a licensee of the brand (big problem in 'brand-centric' categorization). So Volkswagen does not own the brand directly or indirectly, but Porsche AG is a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG.

I have been editing Porsche and contemplating how best to cleanly split the article into Porsche SE and Porsche AG, but the above mentioned issues/questions are enormous on this limited scope alone. As the policy/convention is not established for complicated situations, the current practice seems to handle each on case by case basis. In handling the second largest (correct?) car maker in the world, we should be ready to make decisions with at least semi-plausible reasons on most of the questions raised above, as VW case would likely be looked at as a precedent by others handling less complicated 'groups'. So I hope you could see that simply changing the categories from Volkswagen to Volkswagen Group would not solve any of the issues above, and would complicate the behemoth without some kind of general direction/destination set. If you, or anybody, are willing to work on this, let me know. I'd welcome questions, suggestions, etc. Yiba (talk | contribs) 14:29, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

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Although the current issue is just the renaming of those categories, it is just a tip of an iceberg. As it could have some effect on Volkswagen Group article, I am posting it here. Please keep in mind that I am not saying "Porsche SE Group" is the way to go, but the current Volkswagen Group article defines the group to be "Volkswagen AG and its subsidiaries", which means the grouping is company based (company-centric, not brands or product/service based). Yiba (talk | contribs) 16:19, 16 August 2014 (UTC)