The new chief of Volkswagen's U. S. operations, Jonathan Browning, received a tall order from the automaker's corporate authorities in Wolfsburg, Germany: He got the directive of starting selling as many as eight hundred thousand Volkswagens yearly by the year of 2018.

The figure reflects more than thrice the numbers of sales it did in the last year.

As many as ten years back VW sold of hundreds of thousands of the iconic Beetle and was the number one auto importer in America, and such a target seemed within reach then. But it ha to fight a long battle with reliability and quality problems and that have driven those buyers to Asian brands and even back to domestic manufacturers.

Browning stated that as of now people needed to be convinced about the car itself. He has plans to begin with the new generation Passat midsize sedan, which VW will reveal on Monday at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

VW will pitch the Passat terming it a product of German engineering which can be bought at an accessible price. The car will be equipped with a manual transmission and one two and a half liter five-cylinder engine that will deliver one hundred and seventy horsepower, will start at about twenty thousand dollars.

The models having automatic transmission and versions equipped with larger engines, including a turbo-charged diesel with a likely highway fuel economy of forty three miles per gallon and a driving range of eight hundred miles, will be more expensive.

The vehicle will be meant for people using a Honda Accord, Ford Fusion or a Toyota Camry and who have never thought of riding a VW.

The company will manufacture the sedan at a new one billion dollar worth factory in Chattanooga, Tenn. The product will start selling from the coming fall.