Volkswagen Steers Toward US

Volkswagen wants to be the biggest automaker in the world, but it’s got one little problem: It has only 2.2% of the US market. But the company aims to change all that starting this week, when it rolls out its new Jetta, a spacious sedan designed specifically for mainstream American tastes, the Wall Street Journal reports. It’ll follow that up next year with a family-size sedan built in Tennessee, its first US-built car since the 1980s.

“I am fully aware that Volkswagen was too cautious for too long in North America,” says the company’s CEO. For decades, the company has tried to sell Americans small, expensive cars that are popular in Europe, with little success. Now “we have turned that upside down,” he promises. Volkswagen's lofty goal: to sell 800,000 VWs a year here by 2018, up from the 213,454 it sold last year. (More Volkswagen stories.)