Nuking effectively everything except the Touareg, Tiguan, Atlas, Taos, Q7, Q8, and the entire Porsche lineup in the US has done them no favours. The Golf is dea

Nuking effectively everything except the Touareg, Tiguan, Atlas, Taos, Q7, Q8, and the entire Porsche lineup in the US has done them no favours. The Golf is dead, New Beetle is dead, Passat is dead, the A5 is being neglected, the A8 is just the previous generation with new styling in and out, the A3 still hasn't made it over here in enough numbers for dealers to actually sell them, the A4 is being neglected and hasn't gotten the Q7's upgrades, the Jetta's due to die, Arteon's due to die, and for a partner to the ID.4 the ID.2 hasn't even been launched in favour of slinging us the insultingly priced ID.buzz instead which dealers won't even take allocations for because they know a $60,000 (starting price, most trims hit $80,000) minivan that can't be used as a minivan won't sell. All of the discontinued models were slated to be sent behind the barn before the pandemic, so they can't even use that as an excuse. They tried to copy Ford's stupid move of dropping all sedans and hatchbacks save for the performance halo car and focusing on SUV and CUV sales, and they're seeing the same result of losing market share and being forced upmarket to cover the loss, squeezing margins. Plus the financing plans where they're seemingly deciding to do almost the exact same thing Mitsubishi did in 2001 in offering 0% interest rates and no down payment to grab the Atlas and Taos because they want to eat into the market share that the Nissan Rogue and Kia Sorento have. Carlos Ghosn's stupidity in chasing volume via financing anyone who could breathe at shockingly low interest rates nearly destroyed Nissan and was the reason why he got ousted from both Renault and Nissan. Meanwhile the other manufacturers are seeing the dour consequences of abandoning the $30,000 and below segment and chasing the high end $70,000+ full size SUV customers, which is a tiny fraction of a market that's shrinking further because the upmarket push creates a feedback loop. Volkswagen does not have the cheapness of Nissan and Kia to make up volume, and they don't have the perceived robustness of Toyota to build a base to move upmarket. They're stuck, and they're slinging Taos' and low financing out like candy hoping it will save them and bring back former Golf customers.