True cost of the Veyron revealed

Data analysts Sanford C. Bernstein have highlighted the Bugatti Veyron and Smart Fortwo as two of Europe’s biggest loss makers in the last 20 years.

Headline figures include the Bugatti’s staggering £3.9m loss on each Veyron sold, as well as a total loss of £2.9billion for Mercedes on the entire Smart Fortwo project.

The bulk of the list is made up from the recent industry follies, such as the Fiat Stilo, Jaguar X-type, 2006 Renault Laguna, as well as the Vel Satis – all costing the manufacturers huge sums of money, due to not selling anywhere near the volume required.

There are also some groundbreaking cars from Mercedes and Audi, like the original A-Class – with its clever ‘sandwich’ platform – and the all-aluminium A2.

It could be argued that the figures don’t take into account the valuable development work that has inevitably filtered down to future models – with the whole of the Volkswagen Group benefitting from technology pioneered by the Veyron for example. The numbers involved do however make interesting reading.

Here’s the full breakdown of the estimated figures:

Total lossSmart Fortwo: £2.83bFiat Stilo: £1.77bVW Phaeton: £1.68bPeugeot 1007: £1.75bMk1 Mercedes A-Class: £1.44bBugatti Veyron: £1.43bJaguar X-Type: £1.43bRenault Laguna (2006-2012) £1.30bAudi A2: £1.21bRenault Vel Satis: £1.01bEstimated losses per carBugatti Veyron: £3.9mVW Phaeton: £23,744Renault Vel Satis: £15,805Peugeot 1007: £12,992Audi A2: £6360Jaguar X-Type: £4189Smart Fortwo: £3775Renault Laguna: £2998Fiat Stilo: £2306Mercedes A-Class: £1216