VW's rise to dominance in China appears inexorable, but is it in danger of pushing itself too far?
The Volkswagen Group is a seemingly unstoppable beast.
In China, the world's largest car market, it already has a 20 per cent share of the entire market (one with more than 100 brands to the 36 in North America and 45 in Europe).
And the announcement today of a staggering €9.8 billion investment planned over the next three years is unlikely to do anything than further cement VW Group's place at the top of the sales chart. Indeed, it already calls China its "second home market".
Almost every number associated with VW Group's Chinese operation is vast. When it entered the Chinese market in 1983, it had only Jeep and Peugeot for competition from the west and sold just 600 cars in its first year on sale.
More than 16 million cars sold over 30 years later, as a group it sells double what the next best groups — Hyundai-Kia and General Motors — can manage.
By 2015, its 12 brands will be selling 90 models. The Group's modular MQB platform is coming to China to be produced locally, bringing the latest TSI engines and DSG gearboxes with it.
Even before MQB arrives, sales in the first quarter have come to 770,000, a 24.5 per cent growth on the same period last year, which was itself a record one.
Everywhere you look in China a VW Group brand or model is segment leading. The VW Lavida is topping the sales charts of China's keenest fought compact saloon segment; Bentley has 32 per cent of the luxury segment; Skoda sells one in four cars of its worldwide sales here; 90 per cent of Audi buyers walk into a showroom and pay cash; and Beijing is the only city in the world with a dedicated Bugatti showroom, which sold six Veyrons last year.
All this was revealed in a typical VW Group trumpet blowing and back-slapping style event on the eve of the Shanghai motor show, where it invited the likes of, erm, Keanu Reeves along for company.
Confidence is oozing from the Group at the moment, and it's easy to see why with numbers like this. The danger for VW is complacency setting in for its quest to be the world's largest car maker by 2018.
Does it have too many plates to spin at the moment? The numbers would suggest otherwise, and I still have little doubt VW will get to its 2018 goal, probably with a couple of years to spare due to how wide reaching and all encompassing its approach to global markets has been.
What it needs to remember at the back of its head is that the unstoppable beast can quickly become a tricky to turn oil tanker, should rocky seas be encountered. Just look at what's happened to Tesco this week.