VW Vows to Simplify Parts Count

Volkswagen AG reiterates its hopes of improving the profitability of its VW brand by designing future models to accept a greater proportion of shared parts.

Chief Financial Officer Hans Dieter Poetsch says the strategy has a "significant savings potential." He did not elaborate.

VW earlier said that adopting its new MQB architecture for most of its high-volume models, coupled with commonized components, could cut production costs by 20% or more.