VW Drops Slow-Selling Phaeton Sedan

Volkswagen AG says it will stop making its €90,000 ($98,000) Phaeton sedan at the end of March.

The move ends a failed effort launched 13 years ago by former Chairman Ferdinand Piech to establish the VW brand in the high-end luxury-car market. VW sold roughly 4,000 Phaetons in 2014.

The decision also cancels a plan announced in October to redesign the Phaeton as an electric-only model. VW tells Bloomberg News the zoomy glass-walled factory in Dresden that makes the car will be overhauled and could be used to build other VW models a year or so from now.

The Phaeton’s fate turned gloomy in September when VW embarked on a massive cost-cutting program to prepare it for expenses associated with fixing some 11 million of its diesel vehicles that had been modified to cheat emission tests. VW declared it would trim any program that was not “essential.”