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Volkswagen
Volkswagen (VW; )English: , . is a German automotive industry, automobile manufacturer based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Established in 1937 by German Labour Front, The German Labour Front, it was revitalized into the global brand it is today after World War II by British Army officer Ivan Hirst. The company is well known for the Volkswagen Beetle, Beetle and serves as the flagship marque of the Volkswagen Group, which became the world's largest automotive manufacturer by global sales in 2016 and 2017. The group's largest market is automotive industry in China, China (including Hong Kong and Macau), which accounts for 40% of its sales and profits. The name derives from the German words and , meaning . History 1932–1944: People's Car project Volkswagen was established in 1937 by the German Labour Front () as part of the Strength Through Joy () program in Berlin. In the early 1930s, cars were a luxury—most Germans could afford nothing more elaborate than a mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volkswagen Group
Volkswagen AG (), known internationally as the Volkswagen Group, is a German public multinational conglomerate manufacturer of passenger and commercial vehicles, motorcycles, engines and turbomachinery. Headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany, and since the late 2000s is a publicly traded family business owned by Porsche SE, which in turn is half-owned but fully controlled by the Austrian-German Porsche and Piëch family. The company also offers related services, including financing, leasing, and fleet management. In 2024, it was the world's second-largest automaker by sales. It has maintained the largest market share in Europe for over two decades. It ranked 11th in the 2024 ''Fortune'' Global 500 list of the world's largest companies. In 2024, Volkswagen Group was the largest company in the European Union and the largest car manufacturer in the world by revenue. The Volkswagen Group sells passenger cars under the Audi, Bentley, Cupra, Jetta, Lamborghini, Pors ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volkswagen Beetle
The Volkswagen Beetle, officially the Volkswagen Type 1, is a small family car produced by the German company Volkswagen from 1938 to 2003. One of the most iconic cars in automotive history, the Beetle is noted for its distinctive shape. Its production period of 65 years is the longest of any single generation of automobile, and its total production of over 21.5 million is the most of any car of a single car platform, platform. The Beetle was conceived in the early 1930s. The leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, decided there was a need for a ''people's car''—an inexpensive, simple, mass-produced car—to serve Germany's new road network, the ''Reichsautobahn''. The German engineer Ferdinand Porsche and his design team began developing and designing the car in the early 1930s, but the fundamental design concept can be attributed to Béla Barényi in 1925, predating Porsche's claims by almost ten years. The result was the Volkswagen Type 1 and the introduction of the Volkswage ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ferdinand Porsche
Ferdinand Porsche (3 September 1875 – 30 January 1951) was a German automotive engineering, automotive engineer and founder of the Porsche, Porsche AG. He is best known for creating the first Petrol engine, gasoline–Electric motor, electric Hybrid electric vehicle, hybrid vehicle (Lohner–Porsche), the Volkswagen Beetle, the Auto Union racing cars, the Mercedes-Benz SSK, Mercedes-Benz SS/SSK, and several other important developments and Porsche automobiles. An important contributor to the German war effort during World War II, Porsche was involved in the production of advanced tanks such as the VK 45.01 (P), the Elefant (initially called "Ferdinand") self-propelled gun, and the Panzer VIII Maus super-heavy tank, as well as other weapon systems, including the V-1 flying bomb. Porsche was a member of the Nazi Party and an SS-Ehrenführer, honorary Oberführer of the Allgemeine SS. He was a recipient of the German National Prize for Art and Science, the SS-Ehrenring and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ivan Hirst
Major Ivan Hirst (1 March 1916 – 10 March 2000) was a British Army officer and engineer who was instrumental in reviving Volkswagen from a single factory in Wolfsburg, Germany, into a major postwar automotive manufacturer. Education Hirst was born in Saddleworth, West Riding of Yorkshire, England and attended Hulme Grammar School in Oldham, across the county boundary in Lancashire. His family had founded the Hirst Brothers Company, a manufacturer of watches, clocks and optical components in Oldham. He studied optical engineering at the University of Manchester, prior to forming his own company repairing optical instruments. While a student he was a member of the university's Officers' Training Corps contingent. World War II Hirst was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 7th Battalion, Duke of Wellington's Regiment ( Territorial Army) on 27 June 1934, and promoted to lieutenant three years later. A captain on the outbreak of the Second World War, he was appointed adj ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Automotive Industry In China
The automotive industry in mainland China has been the List of countries by motor vehicle production, largest in the world measured by automobile unit production since 2008. , mainland China is also the world's largest automobile market both in terms of sales and Car ownership, ownership. The Chinese automotive industry has seen significant developments and transformations over the years. While the period from 1949 to 1980 witnessed slow progress in the industry due to restricted competition and political instability during the Cultural Revolution, the landscape started to shift during the Chinese economic reform period that started in the late 1970s, especially after the Government of China, government's seventh five-year plan between 1986 and 1990 prioritized the domestic automobile manufacturing sector. Foreign investment in China, Foreign investment and joint ventures played a crucial role in attracting foreign technology and capital into China. American Motors Corporation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolfsburg
Wolfsburg (; Eastphalian language, Eastphalian: ''Wulfsborg'') is the fifth-largest city in the Germany, German state of Lower Saxony, on the river Aller (Germany), Aller east of Hanover and west of Berlin. Wolfsburg is famous as the location of Volkswagen AG's headquarters and, until it was overtaken by Gigafactory Texas, Tesla Gigafactory Texas in 2022, Wolfsburg Volkswagen Plant, the world's biggest car plant. The Autostadt is a visitor attraction next to the Volkswagen factory that features the company's model range: Audi AG, Audi, Bentley Motors, Bentley, Bugatti Automobiles S.A.S., Bugatti, Ducati, Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A., Lamborghini, MAN SE, MAN, Neoplan, Porsche AG, Porsche, Scania AB, Scania, SEAT, S.A., SEAT, Škoda Auto and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles. Wolfsburg is one of the few German cities built during the first half of the 20th century as a planned community, planned city. From its founding on 1 July 1938 as a company town, home for workers producin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Automotive Industry
The automotive industry comprises a wide range of company, companies and organizations involved in the design, Business development, development, manufacturing, marketing, selling, Maintenance, repairing, and Custom car, modification of motor vehicles. It is one of the world's largest industry (economics), industries by revenue (from 16% such as in France up to 40% in countries such as Slovakia). The word ''automotive'' comes from the Greek language, Greek ''autos'' (self), and Latin ''motivus'' (of motion), referring to any form of self-powered vehicle. This term, as proposed by Elmer Ambrose Sperry, Elmer Sperry (1860–1930), first came into use to describe automobiles in 1898. History The automotive industry began in the 1860s with hundreds of manufacturers pioneering the Brass Era car, horseless carriage. Early car manufacturing involved manual assembly by a human worker. The process evolved from engineers working on a stationary car to a conveyor belt system where the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strength Through Joy
NS Gemeinschaft ; KdF) was a German NSDAP-operated leisure organization in Nazi Germany. Richard Grunberger, ''The 12-Year Reich'', p. 197, It was part of the German Labour Front (), the national labour organization at that time. Set up in November 1933 as a tool to promote the advantages of Nazism to the German people and internationally, it was also used to ease the process of the rearmament of Germany. Through its structure of organized events and promotion of propaganda, it was also intended to prevent dissident and anti-state behavior. By 1939, it became the world's largest tourism operator. KdF was composed of several departments with their own specific goals, with each department organizing different leisure activities. It organized activities such as sporting events on factory floors, art exhibitions, discounted concerts and, most famously and popularly, subsidized holidays and cruise trips. One of its largest departments, although sometimes considered a separate organi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josef Ganz
Josef Ganz (1 July 1898 – 26 July 1967) was a Jewish-German car designer born in Budapest, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Hungary). Early years Josef Ganz was born on 1 July 1898 into a Jewish family living in Budapest, then the second-largest city within Austria-Hungary. His mother was Maria Török (1872–1926) from Hungary. His father was Hugo Markus Ganz (1862–1922) from Mainz in Germany who worked as a political and literary writer and journalist for the Frankfurter Zeitung. At an early age, Josef Ganz was fascinated by technology. After moving from Budapest to Vienna, the family moved to Frankfurt am Main in Germany in 1916 and took on German nationality. In July 1916, Ganz voluntarily enlisted in the German army and fought in the German navy during the First World War. After the war, in 1918, Josef Ganz resumed his mechanical engineering studies at the Technische Hochschule Wien. After three semesters, he switched to the Technische Universität Darmstadt.https:// ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Republic of Germany. In rural areas, Northern Low Saxon and Saterland Frisian language, Saterland Frisian are still spoken, though by declining numbers of people. Lower Saxony borders on (from north and clockwise) the North Sea, the states of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, , Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, and the Netherlands. Furthermore, the Bremen (state), state of Bremen forms two enclaves within Lower Saxony, one being the city of Bremen, the other its seaport, Bremerhaven (which is a semi-exclave, as it has a coastline). Lower Saxony thus borders more neighbours than any other single '. The state's largest cities are the state capital Hanover, Braunschweig (Brunswick), Oldenburg (city), Oldenburg, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steyr 50
The Steyr 50 is a supermini, small car released in 1936 by the Austrian automobile manufacturer Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG. Design The streamliner, streamlined body was approved by Director Karl Jenschke to be constructed in 1935, however, in November of that same year Jenschke was employed as chief designer by the German Adler (automobile), Adler manufacturer in Frankfurt/Main. It was officially presented to the public at the 1936 Berlin Motor Show. The car had a water-cooled four-cylinder Flat engine, boxer engine with thermosiphon cooling, driving the rear wheels through a four-speed transmission. To save room and weight, a dynastarter was used, which doubled as the axle of the radiator fan. It was regarded as the "Austrian Volkswagen Beetle, Volkswagen" and was affectionately referred to as Steyr "Baby". The Volkswagen constructor Ferdinand Porsche had, despite rumors, not been involved in the design or production of the 50, nor was Hans Ledwinka, who had designed the Tatra V570. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
