Volkswagen will stop making the high-end Phaeton sedan

Volkswagen will stop making its top-of-the-line Phaeton sedan by the end of March, ending a pet project of then chairman Ferdinand Piech that failed to establish a presence in luxury cars in more than a decade.

The glass-walled plant in Dresden, Germany, that assembles the Phaeton will be renovated to add capacity for electric vehicles, with the project taking about a year, a spokesman said.

VW decided in October to redesign the Phaeton as an all-electric car amid a cutback in investment plans stemming from the potential cost of an emissions cheating scandal involving other models.

The Phaeton, currently priced at $98,100, was introduced in 2002 and was Volkswagen’s attempt to push into the lucrative market for luxury sedans, a niche firmly occupied by the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and the BMW 7-Series.

Bloomberg News

This story was originally published December 16, 2015 at 1:53 PM with the headline "Volkswagen will stop making the high-end Phaeton sedan."