Your ranking may work for the US, but remember that they already have 9 brands. This includes Bentley, Lamborghini and Bugatti on the high end, and Skoda and Seat on the very low end.

Seat is probably the weakest of all, trying to combine low cost with Southern European (Spanish) charme.

Skoda is their entry level "value" brand in Europe, and very important for the Eastern European markets.

Both use components from VW and combine it with their own bodies and interiors. They get to pick what best fits their image and target price.

VW, on the other hand, stands for high quality, conservative styling, and basic luxury.

In America, the VW brand has to cover all three of the above. That's why the next Jetta is going to be a model designed specifically for the US market - probably simpler and cheaper than the current model. We'll see.

 

I didn't realize they have S3eat and Skoda and you bring up a good point

Bently, Lamborghini and Bugatti are exclusive brands and technically they should remain low volume brands where are made to order.

 

Yes, they are low volume, but they still share a lot of components with all the other brands of the Volkswagen conglomerate. Think about the cost of electronics engineering. Lots of hidden stuff that they can share from top-of-the-line models to the entry level without the customer noticing a difference.

BTW: not sure you know this, but the Bentley Continental is totally based on the VW Phaeton platform, and built in Dresden, where the whole plant is transparent (with glass walls) for visitors to see how their cars are being built. The Audi R8 shares a lot with the Lambo Gallardo. The W12 engine in the Bentley and Phaeton has a lot in common with the VR6, and the 16-Cylinder of the Bugatti was also developed based on other, proven VW engine components.

Porsche makes about 100k cars per year (probably less this year)

For VW, a factory that makes that many would be considered small. They make over 6 Million cars per year worldwide, with significant economies of scale.

If Porsche gets better access to these economies of scale, they could be more efficient, more profitable, and offer better products that they could not afford to engineer by themselves.

Which is the main point of getting closer to VW, and preventing a takeover of VW by a third party.

Whatever happens, it seems they have reached that goal.