According to Stefan Jacoby, Volkswagen Group of America CEO, the automaker will most likely drop the Passat sedan and wagon in 2011 when its new U.S. built mid-size sedan goes on sale.

“We are looking at it in detail,” Jacoby said at a press event earlier this month.

The U.S. built mid-size four-door car will be larger than the Passat but will be priced lower since Volkswagen will be building it at its new plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

“We’ll have two sedans coming out at the same time, and the smaller one will cost considerably more than the bigger one,” said a VW spokesman.

Volkswagen said that it plans to export the new U.S. built sedan, which has been designed primarily for the United States. The German automaker will still sell the Passat in Europe with a new redesigned version to arrive in 2011. The new Passat CC will continue to sell on the stateside.

Jacoby said that the automaker expects to sell about 100,000 units of the new sedans annually. Sales of the Passat sedan and wagon peaked in 2002 with a total of 96,142 units sold. Sales fell to 30,035 last year.

- By: Kap Shah

Source: AutoWeek

The Passat CC has received an outstanding customer reception here in the U.S. so Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn is urging his team to move the Passat facelift to next year instead of 2010 – a total redesign of the Passat has been brought forward from 2014 to 2012 according to CAR.

Don’t expect any radical changes to the facelift for the Passat. According to CAR, the facelift for the sedan will features a lot less chrome, new headlamps, a new front and rear bumper and a lot more technological features. However, CAR says that the redesigned 2012 Volkswagen Passat will be so radical that it will make us think twice about buying a BMW 3-Series or an Audi A4.

A more powerful 204-hp 2.0 TDI diesel is in the works for the European market and we wouldn’t cancel any plans for it to make it to the U.S. since Volkswagen is already considering a diesel Passat CC for the U.S.  Passat will never go the V8 route so don’t expect the current V6 lineup to change much either.

The 2012 Volkswagen Passat will make its world debut in early 2011.

Source: CAR