{"id":568718,"date":"2010-05-18T11:01:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-18T15:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2010\/05\/18\/report-vw-ceo-says-seat-getting-its-last-chance\/"},"modified":"2010-05-18T11:01:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-18T15:01:00","slug":"report-vw-ceo-says-seat-getting-its-last-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/568718","title":{"rendered":"Report: VW CEO says Seat getting its last chance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Filed under: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/category\/euro\/\" rel=\"tag\">Europe<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/category\/earnings-financials\/\" rel=\"tag\">Earnings\/Financials<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/category\/seat\/\" rel=\"tag\">SEAT<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/photos\/seat-ibiza-sport-tourer\/#2677859\"><img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"4\" hspace=\"0\" border=\"1\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.blogcdn.com\/www.autoblog.com\/media\/2010\/05\/ibiza-630.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong><small>Seat Ibiza Sport Tourer &#8211; Click above for high-res image gallery<\/small><\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n<p>\nIt&#8217;s no secret that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2010\/04\/20\/seat-shows-off-new-alhambra-peoplemover-based-on-vw-sharan\/\">Seat<\/a> is the dimmest bulb in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/make\/volkswagen\/\">Volkswagen<\/a> classroom. The beleaguered Spanish manufacturer squandered a total of $138 million in the first quarter of this year alone &#8211; more than double what the next two least profitable brands in the German manufacturer&#8217;s lineup lost. In a last-ditch effort to get Seat back on its feet, VW has announced that it will both expand the company&#8217;s offerings and spread the brand outside of Spain. The plan is the brainchild of James Muir, the company&#8217;s new CEO as of September of last year. <\/p>\n<p>Many of the problems currently afflicting Seat are due to the fact that Spain&#8217;s economy has taken a beating during the global recession. Likewise, most of the company&#8217;s sales come from Southern Europe &#8211; an area that hasn&#8217;t fared well amid the financial crisis. VW hasn&#8217;t said exactly where the Seat name will be showing up in the near future, but you can bet your lucky underpants it will be somewhere with a little extra money in its pocket.<\/p>\n<p>Likewise, the company didn&#8217;t say much about what we can expect in terms of new models. According to <em>Bloomberg Businessweek<\/em>, a total of 56 percent of Seat sales come from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2010\/02\/04\/geneva-preview-seat-shows-off-ibiza-sport-tourer\/\">Ibiza<\/a> compact, and Muir says that if the automaker&#8217;s outlook is to improve, that needs to change.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"postgallery\">\n<p><strong>Gallery: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/photos\/seat-ibiza-sport-tourer\/\">SEAT Ibiza Sport Tourer<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/photos\/seat-ibiza-sport-tourer\/#2677859\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.blogcdn.com\/www.autoblog.com\/media\/2010\/02\/seat-ibiza-sport-tourer-2_thumbnail.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/photos\/seat-ibiza-sport-tourer\/#2677857\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.blogcdn.com\/www.autoblog.com\/media\/2010\/02\/seat-ibiza-sport-tourer-3_thumbnail.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/photos\/seat-ibiza-sport-tourer\/#2677860\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.blogcdn.com\/www.autoblog.com\/media\/2010\/02\/seat-ibiza-sport-tourer-6_thumbnail.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/photos\/seat-ibiza-sport-tourer\/#2677858\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.blogcdn.com\/www.autoblog.com\/media\/2010\/02\/seat-ibiza-sport-tourer-4_thumbnail.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/photos\/seat-ibiza-sport-tourer\/#2677862\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.blogcdn.com\/www.autoblog.com\/media\/2010\/02\/seat-ibiza-sport-tourer-5-1265289808_thumbnail.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>\n[Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/news\/2010-05-13\/vw-in-last-attempt-to-save-seat-amid-spanish-crisis-update1-.html\">Bloomberg Businessweek<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2010\/05\/18\/report-vw-ceo-says-seat-getting-its-last-chance\/\">Report: VW CEO says Seat getting its last chance<\/a> originally appeared on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\">Autoblog<\/a> on Tue, 18 May 2010 10:01:00 EST.  Please see our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.weblogsinc.com\/feed-terms\/\">terms for use of feeds<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h6 style=\"clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;\"><\/h6>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2010\/05\/18\/report-vw-ceo-says-seat-getting-its-last-chance\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Permanent link to this entry\">Permalink<\/a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/forward\/19479779\/\" title=\"Send this entry to a friend via email\">Email this<\/a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2010\/05\/18\/report-vw-ceo-says-seat-getting-its-last-chance\/#comments\" title=\"View reader comments on this entry\">Comments<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Filed under: Europe, Earnings\/Financials, SEAT Seat Ibiza Sport Tourer &#8211; Click above for high-res image gallery It&#8217;s no secret that Seat is the dimmest bulb in the Volkswagen classroom. The beleaguered Spanish manufacturer squandered a total of $138 million in the first quarter of this year alone &#8211; more than double what the next two [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6487,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-568718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6487"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}