Ulrich Hackenberg isn't yet a household name but if Volkswagen's $70 billion bet on his big idea pays off, he may join the likes of Henry Ford, Alfred Sloan and Taiichi Ohno in the canon of auto industry pioneers. .................
To hedge its potential emerging-markets exposure, VW also has overhauled its loss-making North American operations - an estimated $4-billion investment, according to Morgan Stanley, that could more than double U.S. sales by 2018 to 1.3 million.