NEW YORK — Volkswagen's North American executive team swears the Atlas Tanoak unibody pickup that captivated the auto show here last week is "just a concept," built to gauge market reaction and show what the automaker's flexible MQB platform can do.
"There are no plans right now for production," Volks- wagen of America CEO Hinrich Woebcken said.
But between the sound bites and official statements tamping down expectations, some things were clear: Woeb- cken and his team want to build this pickup, they may need to build it and they're actively gaming out scenarios that would justify doing so.
And women could be the key to making it all happen.
First things first: Woebcken and his boss in Germany, Herbert Diess, need VW to sell hundreds of thousands more vehicles in North America per year than they do today — well over twice as many, in fact.
Both want the brand to achieve a 5 percent U.S. market share within 10 years, up from its current 2.1 percent. That's a giant ask from a lineup laden with vehicles in collapsing sedan segments — with no entries in the hot-selling full-size or midsize pickup segments — and from a brand that has had difficulty conquesting customers.
Volkswagen also needs to load more products into its underused $2 billion assembly plant in Chattanooga, which builds two vehicles and will add a third late next year, but still has plenty of room to grow.
The more MQB-based products — such as the seven-seat Atlas crossover and five-seater based on the Atlas Cross Sport concept coming next year — that VW can load into the plant, the greater the savings from production and purchasing efficiencies.
Best shot
Woebcken says the Atlas-based Tanoak concept might be the only way for the brand to take a shot at the pickup market.
"If you look at this big, very patriotic segment in America, this [large pickup] segment, that is something very difficult if you tried to jump into that business model," Woebcken said. "We would never be able to get the business economics together, at least with the volume expectations that we have in mind."
An MQB pickup based on the Atlas, though, is a different story.
"This business is all about scalability and getting business economics together — on the one hand offering customers affordable products and on the other hand giving Volkswagen a chance to make a fair margin on it," Woebcken said.
The Tanoak concept shares the Atlas powertrain, a 3.6-liter V-6 engine mated to an eight-speed transmission, though its styling is decidedly bolder.
It is also bigger than its closest would-be competitor, the unibody Honda Ridgeline, and, sizewise, not that far from body-on-frame midsize pickups such as the Chevrolet Colorado and upcoming Ford Ranger. And as a lifestyle pickup, it would enter the market well after those more well-established players and after the debut next year of the Wrangler-based pickup coming from Jeep, whose dimensions are not yet known.
The right opportunity?
But there may be opportunity for VW in targeting the right demographic. Indeed, that's how female buyers figure into the Tanoak's potential future if Volkswagen's pickup gets the green light from Wolfsburg.
In 2017, women purchased 18 percent of all pickups, including 21 percent of midsize pickups, according to Edmunds. And women also weigh heavily into the final purchasing decisions in the hot-selling segment. Yet with the possible exception of the Ridgeline, very little pickup marketing targets female buyers.
Rebecca Lindland, an analyst with kbb.com, said VW needs to conquest customers if it wants to grow. She said marketing the Tanoak toward women is something that the automaker could explore.
"No one is doing that right now," said Lindland. "If you look at what Ford is doing with its messaging aimed at women with the Escape, a campaign like that could work for Volkswagen."
Not that the Tanoak should be pink and petite if it ever gets to market, but its marketing should emphasize the attributes of a unibody pickup that may be attractive to women.
For example: The unibody construction and Atlas-based suspension should give it a much smoother, carlike ride than body-on-frame competitors. It has bold exterior styling cues, but its interior has the luxury feel of an Audi sedan. Its 4Motion all-wheel-drive system is less cumbersome than that of some competitive models in the segment, while its 2-inch lift — at least on the concept — should provide a confident, commanding view of the road.
Perhaps most importantly, and unlike full-size pickups, even though it's just under 18 feet in length (214.1 inches overall), it should fit in most standard garages.
Volkswagen has a well-established enthusiast community that is loyal to the brand, but it has a harder time conquesting buyers from other brands. A unibody lifestyle pickup marketed at female buyers when the other brands are making their trucks look like angry bodybuilders might be an opportunity.
Woebcken conceded here that the idea warranted closer study.
Volkswagen is late to the industry's ongoing pickup party. But if it decides to build a version of the Tanoak and concentrates its marketing on attracting female buyers, it's not too late to have a play.
