Even from its launch, everyone knew the Bugatti Veyron was a huge money loser for the Volkswagen Group. Only 450 will ever be built but one of the most expensive cars in the world still loses the Volkswagen Group an almost unfathomable €4 617 500 (or R62-million) per vehicle. Automotive analysts from Berstein Research, say the Bugatti Veyron tops the list as losing the most amount of money on each unit sold.
That figure is made up of the time, production and development cost sunk into an automotive project, which in the case of the world’s fastest car, reached stratospheric proportions. But the Bugatti Veyron was never meant to make money; it was an exercise to show what was possible when you built a car with no limits.
But there are other massive money losers in the automotive industry that are far less forgivable because they weren’t hypercars and were actually meant to be profitable from the start. According to a brokerage firm, Sanford C. Bernstein, published in The Economist, there are some real whoppers:
The first generation Smart ForTwo (1997 – 2006), generated a loss of €4 470 (R60 000) on each ForTwo it made, or €3.3-billion (R48-billion) over the 749 000 units produced by Daimler over its lifecycle. The automaker built a new dedicated plant, an all-new platform and engineered new 3-cylinder engines.
Second on the list is the Fiat Stilo (2001 – 2009) which brought the company a loss of €2.1-billion (or R28-billion) over the 769 000 units the Italian automaker made, a figure which was 70% less than Fiat’s initial estimate.
In third place is another Volkswagen Group product, the Volkswagen Phaeton, which was built on a whim by VW chairman Ferdinand Piech. They made 72 000 Phaetons and lost €28 100 (R382 000) on each one sold. The total loss was €1.9-billion (R2.7-billion).
In fourth position is the Peugeot 1007 (€1.9-billion), fifth is the first-generation Mercedes-Benz A-Class (€1.7-billion), sixth is the Bugatti Veyron (€1.7-billion), seventh is the Jaguar X-Type (€1.7-billion), eighth is the third-generation Renault Laguna (€1.5-billion), ninth is the Audi A2 (€1.3-billion) and finally the Renault Vel Satis (€1.2-billion).
