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Volkswagen Fine-Tunes Vehicles for U.S. Tastes, Including 2015 Golf
Edmunds.com
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On the one hand, it is quite understandable that VW wants to "know" their customer, and in this regards, it is encouraging to see them make adjustments in order to popularize their product ...
...however, the danger with such a strategy is that it risks alienating their existing customer base, particuarly those who were attracted to the Marquee for the very reason that it _differs_ from these Americanocentric preferences.
So this is a very slippery slope, because changing too much to cater to the American mainstream also means that the Marquee is sacrificing its cache and differentation: it is choosing to become a simple transportation commodity product which erodes their ability to charge more (which ultimately reduces Corporate profit margins).
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Anecdotally, I've found that BMW is following a similar strategy of changing themselves to appeal to more American customers.
While shopping, I did a test drive in a 3er and found the very same "too much too early" nonlinear throttle mapping to be present. When I returned from my test drive, I overhead some other perspective customers gushing about how 'peppy' the car was, but when the BMW Rep asked me how much I liked it, I told him that I didn't. I specifically and literally said: "The Throttle Mapping is Wrong."
Ultimately, these are the sorts of design philsophy attributes which we typically consider to be "intangibles" yet which exist and motivate us to be repeat customers of a particular marquee for the longer term.
BMW lost that sale....
-hh