FRANKFURT, Oct. 15 ? Volkswagen threw its weight behind a hostile bid by the German truck maker MAN to acquire a Swedish rival, Scania, for 10.3 billion euros ($12.9 billion) in cash and stock.

Volkswagen, which is the largest shareholder of both companies, said on Sunday that if MAN won enough support from other shareholders for the deal it would sell its 34 percent voting stake in Scania to MAN.

“MAN welcomes Volkswagen’s continued support for its concept to combine MAN and Scania and its willingness to tender its shares into a successful offer,” MAN said in a statement.

Volkswagen’s conditional endorsement of MAN’s hostile bid could be seen as a veiled threat to the Scania managers, who have repeatedly rejected a merger. Representatives of Scania could not immediately be reached for comment.

Some analysts expect that the company may decide on Monday to propose issuing a hefty special dividend, which would act as a de facto poison pill defense, meaning MAN would have to raise its bid a second time.

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IN Greek mythology, Eos was the supernaturally beautiful goddess of the dawn, the brightest star in the morning sky. She was also a bit of a tramp, and had many lovers.

In choosing Eos as the name for its shapely new coupe-cabriolet, Volkswagen was no doubt alluding to how the car?s retracting hardtop heralds the sun. VW is also hoping this enticing car seduces a lot of lovers ? at least 12,000 a year.

The Eos 2.0T test car certainly caught my eye with its sinuous, voluptuous lines; its sultry, deep Red Pepper paint; and its supple, embracing Corn Silk Beige leather seats. But the thing that said, “Marry me!” was its window sticker: $30,620 nicely equipped. That?s roughly the same price as the far less appealing Pontiac G6 convertible, and about $17,000 less than a full-zoot Volvo C70.

After so many years of doing so many things so wrong ? especially in its seeming disdain for and neglect of the American market ? Volkswagen at long last shows signs that it is finding its way. With the recent introduction of a frisky new Rabbit, an energetic GTI, a redesigned Passat and the clever Eos ? not to mention rumored, potentially more alluring models like a Scirocco sport coupe ? VW seems serious again about selling cars to Americans. That has to be bad news for the charisma-challenged automakers based in Detroit.

When the Eos made its debut last year at the Frankfurt auto show, I fully expected the Department of Homeland Security to ban the car here as a threat to domestic tranquillity. This is the type of desirable foreign exotic that, for whatever mysterious reason, seldom finds its way across the Atlantic. A case in point is the new Focus coupe with a retracting hardtop, which the Ford Motor Company inexplicably refuses to sell outside of Europe. If such models do show up here, they tend to arrive dumbed-down, overpriced or both.

VW offers a stripped-down base Eos with a manual transmission only, for $28,620. But in 2.0T trim the car is a complete package, fully realized and ready to ramble. Both the base and 2.0T have a silky smooth 2-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine that produces more than ample (200) horsepower. Although I spent much of my too-short time in the car flubbing the interaction between the hair-trigger clutch and the very close-pattern shifter, the six-speed manual transmission itself is well geared.

This is an economical package too, with an average E.P.A. highway rating of 32 m.p.g. on the highway and 23 m.p.g. in town. For those who do not enjoy rowing their own boat, VW?s six-speed direct shift gearbox, with Tiptronic manual control, is $1,075 extra. A 3.2-liter V-6 will be available later this year, driving the price up another $3,000 or so.

The bigger power plant will produce 250 horsepower, which seems like overkill in a car like this. The base engine and transmission configuration will easily propel the Eos from a standstill to 60 m.p.h. in just 6.4 seconds, according to testing by Car and Driver magazine.

Not only fast in a straight line, the Eos tames corners well for a 3,500-pound convertible. (That?s about 500 pounds more than a Rabbit.) Much of that stability is courtesy of a capable multilink independent rear suspension. Expanded front and rear tracks also increase lateral stability. The steering is spot-on precise.

The Eos is slotted in Volkswagen?s lineup in the tight space between the Rabbit (known as the Golf elsewhere in the world) and the Passat. It shares most of its components, thankfully, with a bias toward the upscale Passat. At a length of about 173 inches, the Eos is about 10 inches longer than a Rabbit and about 15 shorter than a Passat. (For comparison?s sake, the G6 convertible is 189 inches long and the C70 is 180).

To neutralize the loss of torsional rigidity inherent in any convertible, VW engineers cleverly took the basket-handle roll bar of the VW Cabrio, inverted it and placed it under the rear seat pedestal. A beefed-up windshield frame of hot-stamped ultra-high-strength steel is connected directly to the floor pan?s reinforced frame rails. Steel tubing provides more stiffness behind the doors for an extra layer of safety. Partly as a consequence, rear seat passengers have about 10 inches less shoulder room than in the smaller Rabbit.

Over all, two adults can survive the back seat, assuming that those in front are considerate enough to move forward a bit. It also helps if you are less than 5-foot-10. Still, engaging the Eos?s signature feature ? its retractable hardtop ? will end all grousing about a lack of headroom.

The Eos?s raison d??tre is its five-panel retractable roof structure. With the top up, there?s a push-back sunshade that reveals a tinted glass-panel roof section almost generous enough to make you forget the need for a convertible. But at the touch of a switch, the whole structure effortlessly stacks out of sight under the rear deck. Somehow, with the top down there is still 6.6 cubic feet of trunk space ? that?s enough for about one roll-on suitcase. The trunk expands to 10.5 cubic feet with the top up.

Carefully designed wind baffles atop the windshield bar keep the cockpit enjoyably calm during top-down motoring. In a rollover, pyrotechnic roll bars and curtain-style air bags deploy instantly.

The only caveat here is VW?s dodgy reputation for quality and reliability in recent years, particularly for its new models. But Wolfgang Bernhard, chairman of the Volkswagen brand, has staked his reputation ? and probably his job ? on drastic and immediate improvements. If he is successful, Eos could indeed herald the dawn of a new day for VW.

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IN Greek mythology, Eos was the supernaturally beautiful goddess of the dawn, the brightest star in the morning sky. She was also a bit of a tramp, and had many lovers.

In choosing Eos as the name for its shapely new coupe-cabriolet, Volkswagen was no doubt alluding to how the car?s retracting hardtop heralds the sun. VW is also hoping this enticing car seduces a lot of lovers ? at least 12,000 a year.

The Eos 2.0T test car certainly caught my eye with its sinuous, voluptuous lines; its sultry, deep Red Pepper paint; and its supple, embracing Corn Silk Beige leather seats. But the thing that said, “Marry me!” was its window sticker: $30,620 nicely equipped. That?s roughly the same price as the far less appealing Pontiac G6 convertible, and about $17,000 less than a full-zoot Volvo C70.

After so many years of doing so many things so wrong ? especially in its seeming disdain for and neglect of the American market ? Volkswagen at long last shows signs that it is finding its way. With the recent introduction of a frisky new Rabbit, an energetic GTI, a redesigned Passat and the clever Eos ? not to mention rumored, potentially more alluring models like a Scirocco sport coupe ? VW seems serious again about selling cars to Americans. That has to be bad news for the charisma-challenged automakers based in Detroit.

When the Eos made its debut last year at the Frankfurt auto show, I fully expected the Department of Homeland Security to ban the car here as a threat to domestic tranquillity. This is the type of desirable foreign exotic that, for whatever mysterious reason, seldom finds its way across the Atlantic. A case in point is the new Focus coupe with a retracting hardtop, which the Ford Motor Company inexplicably refuses to sell outside of Europe. If such models do show up here, they tend to arrive dumbed-down, overpriced or both.

VW offers a stripped-down base Eos with a manual transmission only, for $28,620. But in 2.0T trim the car is a complete package, fully realized and ready to ramble. Both the base and 2.0T have a silky smooth 2-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine that produces more than ample (200) horsepower. Although I spent much of my too-short time in the car flubbing the interaction between the hair-trigger clutch and the very close-pattern shifter, the six-speed manual transmission itself is well geared.

This is an economical package too, with an average E.P.A. highway rating of 32 m.p.g. on the highway and 23 m.p.g. in town. For those who do not enjoy rowing their own boat, VW?s six-speed direct shift gearbox, with Tiptronic manual control, is $1,075 extra. A 3.2-liter V-6 will be available later this year, driving the price up another $3,000 or so.

The bigger power plant will produce 250 horsepower, which seems like overkill in a car like this. The base engine and transmission configuration will easily propel the Eos from a standstill to 60 m.p.h. in just 6.4 seconds, according to testing by Car and Driver magazine.

Not only fast in a straight line, the Eos tames corners well for a 3,500-pound convertible. (That?s about 500 pounds more than a Rabbit.) Much of that stability is courtesy of a capable multilink independent rear suspension. Expanded front and rear tracks also increase lateral stability. The steering is spot-on precise.

The Eos is slotted in Volkswagen?s lineup in the tight space between the Rabbit (known as the Golf elsewhere in the world) and the Passat. It shares most of its components, thankfully, with a bias toward the upscale Passat. At a length of about 173 inches, the Eos is about 10 inches longer than a Rabbit and about 15 shorter than a Passat. (For comparison?s sake, the G6 convertible is 189 inches long and the C70 is 180).

To neutralize the loss of torsional rigidity inherent in any convertible, VW engineers cleverly took the basket-handle roll bar of the VW Cabrio, inverted it and placed it under the rear seat pedestal. A beefed-up windshield frame of hot-stamped ultra-high-strength steel is connected directly to the floor pan?s reinforced frame rails. Steel tubing provides more stiffness behind the doors for an extra layer of safety. Partly as a consequence, rear seat passengers have about 10 inches less shoulder room than in the smaller Rabbit.

Over all, two adults can survive the back seat, assuming that those in front are considerate enough to move forward a bit. It also helps if you are less than 5-foot-10. Still, engaging the Eos?s signature feature ? its retractable hardtop ? will end all grousing about a lack of headroom.

The Eos?s raison d??tre is its five-panel retractable roof structure. With the top up, there?s a push-back sunshade that reveals a tinted glass-panel roof section almost generous enough to make you forget the need for a convertible. But at the touch of a switch, the whole structure effortlessly stacks out of sight under the rear deck. Somehow, with the top down there is still 6.6 cubic feet of trunk space ? that?s enough for about one roll-on suitcase. The trunk expands to 10.5 cubic feet with the top up.

Carefully designed wind baffles atop the windshield bar keep the cockpit enjoyably calm during top-down motoring. In a rollover, pyrotechnic roll bars and curtain-style air bags deploy instantly.

The only caveat here is VW?s dodgy reputation for quality and reliability in recent years, particularly for its new models. But Wolfgang Bernhard, chairman of the Volkswagen brand, has staked his reputation ? and probably his job ? on drastic and immediate improvements. If he is successful, Eos could indeed herald the dawn of a new day for VW.

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VOLKSWAGEN gives the impression it was a last-minute thing, something of an afterthought, to revive the Rabbit name ? almost as arbitrarily as the company killed its lovable bunny in 1984.

Actually, executives at Volkswagen of America were suggesting as far back as four years ago that they might make the rabbit reappear. At the introduction of the New Beetle convertible, the company?s vice president at the time, Frank Maguire, was asked what the company?s next retro revival might be.

Reporters were angling for a commitment that VW would start producing the acclaimed Microbus design study; instead, Mr. Maguire gave an unexpected answer. ?Actually,? he said, ?we?ve been giving some thought to the Rabbit.?

At the time, the idea that VW would revive a popular model name that it had euthanized so suddenly, inexplicably and largely without justification nearly 20 years earlier seemed to make little sense. Yet, as the company?s fortunes faded in recent years with disappointing sales, a dwindling lineup, spotty reliability and unfavorable euro-dollar exchange rates, the original Rabbit?s 1975-84 heyday started looking better by comparison.

The fifth-generation Golf went on sale in Europe in the winter of 2004, but VW is just now getting around to selling it in the United States. VW?s American operation sorely needed a new angle for this somewhat dated car. Hence, the company pulled a rabbit, quite literally, out of its hat.

Architecturally, the 2006 Rabbit is a Jetta with its trunk sheared off; the cars share underpinnings, drivetrains and major mechanical components.

As always, the Rabbit is a hatchback. The base two-door starts at $15,620; adding two more doors costs you $1,000 apiece. The workhorse engine is a 2.5-liter in-line 5-cylinder. For a mere $7,000 more, you can have the sporty GTI with a 2-liter turbo 4.

After 2006, VW will no longer offer a turbodiesel in the United States.

The original 1974 Rabbit was promoted as a performance machine, which makes sense only if you recall that the car replaced the legendary, and legendarily sluggish, Beetle. The first Rabbit?s 71-horsepower 1.5-liter engine seems laughably underpowered these days, though they must have seemed quicker than they were.

Today?s base Rabbit comes with more than twice the horsepower ? 150, to be exact ? and a comparatively lavish 170 foot-pounds of torque. The 20-valve engine delivers its thrust in satisfying measures, while still conforming to California?s stringent partial zero emissions vehicle regulations. Along with PZEV-rated cars from other companies, the Rabbit is one of the cleanest vehicles on the road.

The engine seems particularly well-matched to the five-speed manual transmission in my four-door test car. While I did not drive a Rabbit with the optional six-speed automatic, that gearbox has been a smooth operator in other VW?s. The floor-mounted shifter, which waved around like a broken butter churn in Rabbits from the disco era, feels particularly crisp and precise. It seemed to find gears intuitively, both up or down the shift pattern. The only sour note was the hair-trigger (hare trigger?) clutch. If you stall the car, you must turn off the ignition, which locks the steering wheel, before attempting a restart (your foot must also be on the brake). This is not a pleasant experience in the middle of a busy intersection.

At a time like this, when a fast getaway is needed, the Rabbit will oblige with zero to 60 miles an hour in nearly 9 seconds flat with the manual and 9.4 for the automatic, according to Car and Driver magazine.

This represents a significant gain in performance over the outgoing base engine, a 115-horsepower 4-cylinder tortoise, which will not be missed. But fuel economy takes a slight hit with the new in-line 5, which is rated at 22 miles per gallon in the city, 30 on the highway.

A more robust power plant was essential because, over the years, the cuddly Rabbit has become a little porky. The aforementioned 1974 model tipped the scale at less than 2,000 pounds; today?s hare-ball spins that dial to 3,000.

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THE school buses that my daughter rode to kindergarten were cleverly marked for the preliterate. Each bus?s windshield bore the image of an animal ? red dog, blue fish, green rabbit ? so each child at the bus stop would take the right route. These were automotive mascots at their most basic, symbolism easy enough for a child.

Early on, automakers seized on symbolism to distinguish their vehicles, borrowing names from noble explorers, tribal chieftains or heraldic animals. But the days of the Stutz Bearcat and Hupp Skylark have passed; nowadays names tend to be generated by computers or consultants ? when there are names at all, and not just cold, efficient numbers and letters.

So it came as a shock when Volkswagen announced in April that it was bringing back the Rabbit. Journalists at the New York auto show thought the press release might be a late April?s Fool joke; it came from Kerri Martin, VW?s director of brand innovation, who had earlier worked at Mini, a company famous for its April 1 pranks.

VW?s customers, she declared, prefer names like Beetle, Fox and Thing because ?they like a connection to their cars.? But there is another reason for the rabbit redux: attracting younger customers. Numbers and letters are serious and grown-up; these name tricks are for kids.

The rabbit logo, worn from 1974 to 1984 by a car known outside North America as the Golf, returns mostly unchanged. Its contours are soft, even for a rabbit; the bunny seems practically boneless.

To those who recall the old Rabbit, the revival can seem ironic, like the Playboy bunny logo on fashions for teenage girls. Volkswagen even ran an ad for the Rabbit on Playboy?s back cover. A topless model, seen from behind, wears a tattoo of the VW mascot. The rabbit also shows up with the Playboy bunny on street posters in Los Angeles, along with a Chihuahua. (Taco Bell meets Hugh Hefner?)

There are local variations of these posters. In Miami, they show the rabbit with a mosquito and an alligator; in Boston with a clam and a lobster; and in New York with a pigeon and a rat ? a bit of urban wit.

?The Rabbit is back,? is the slogan, although VW executives have said they think their target customers will be unaware of the original. Does this group also believe that ?Miami Vice? and ?Starsky and Hutch? are fresh, brilliant works of auteur cinema?

A rabbit, as in ?running like a scared …,? is hardly a totem of speed, power or control. But this bunny is the cutesy alter-ego of one of the strangest mascots ever invented: ?the Fast,? created for VW by the Crispin Porter & Bogusky advertising agency. Barely recognizable as un lapin, the intense creature is the centerpiece of ads for the GTI, a sporty version of the Golf/Rabbit. ?Get in touch with your Fast,? is the slogan, implying that everyone has a mischievous, speedy id inside.

The Fast is to the Rabbit as Big Daddy Roth?s Rat Fink is to Mickey Mouse. Another of the Fast?s spiritual forebears was the gremlin on the gasoline cap of American Motors? legendarily ugly 1970?s compact of the same name. That gremlin resembled nothing so much as a demented elf.

Volkswagen handed out 10-inch plastic renditions of the Fast character. Even before the ads began to appear or the toys to be distributed, the company declared that the Fast dolls were selling on eBay for hundreds of dollars. The statement was dutifully repeated in the business press. But VW fans in forums and blogs expressed suspicion at how slickly written the eBay ads were and how promptly they appeared. Was this grass-roots viral marketing, or was it astroturfing, to use the new term for generating artificial impressions of enthusiasm?

The rabbit is not the only mascot making a return. Dodge is bringing back its 1970?s Super Bee character on a special edition of the Charger. The huge yellow bee recalls the days of muscle-car mascot madness in the late 1960?s and early 70?s, when designing-by-decal produced models like the Plymouth Road Runner, the Plymouth Duster and the Dodge Demon.

Bearing the Looney Tunes cartoon character, the 1968 Road Runner was based on the Plymouth Satellite. The Road Runner appeared on fender decals and on the steering wheel hub which, when pushed, sounded a beep-beep tone.

While the Road Runner was licensed from Warner Brothers, Chrysler eventually figured it could invent its own characters. The air cleaners of some Road Runners were decorated with the words ?Coyote Duster,? and the Duster image ? a swirling tornado (or dust devil) made its way onto a Plymouth of the same name. The Dodge Demon?s mascot was a red devil toting a pitchfork.

Sometimes the Mopar mascotology became confused: there was a Duster Twister model, for instance. The Superbird, with its vast rear wing, had the Road Runner holding a racing helmet.

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The Czech company said revenue in the period grew 18.3% to CZK54.4 billion ($2.5 billion), while operating profit increased by 112.5%, reaching CZK4.1 billion ($185 million).

Skoda achieved record sales in the first quarter of 2006; the company sold 129,778 Fabia, Octavia and Superb vehicles from January until March 2006, representing an 18.5% increase on the prior-year period.

The number of full-time staff of Skoda Auto at the end of the first quarter of 2006 was 22,698 and the number of temporary staff was 3,349. A total of 880 people were employed in the three month period ending March 31, 2006.

As all of the company’s entire model ranges have improved their last year’s results – the Fabia by 7.2%, the Superb by 14.7% and the Octavia by 31.7% – Skoda said it is on track to deliver another whole-year best in 2006.

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A unanimous vote by Volkswagen’s supervisory board gave Mr. Pischetsrieder another chance to revive Volkswagen, Europe’s largest carmaker, which has lost ground in recent years to more efficient rivals like Toyota.

The vote, a day before the company’s annual meeting in Hamburg, was arguably a setback for its influential chairman, Ferdinand K. Pi?ch, who raised doubts about Mr. Pischetsrieder’s future in February by saying that he had lost the support of employees.

After weeks of uncertainty, Mr. Pi?ch reversed course last month, declaring that he was pleased with Volkswagen’s management and that he expected Mr. Pischetsrieder’s contract to be extended.

VW’s two largest shareholders, Porsche and the state of Lower Saxony, had already pledged support for the chief executive. Employee representatives and union leaders, who hold 10 of the 20 seats on the board, voted in his favor as well, after initially balking because of his proposed cost cuts.

“Pi?ch has lost his battle within Volkswagen,” said Ferdinand Dudenh?ffer, director of the Center for Automotive Research in Gelsenkirchen. “This makes him something of a lame duck.”

Though Mr. Pischetsrieder, 58, held on to his post, his grip on Volkswagen has been shaken. Labor representatives and their union, IG Metall, used the uncertainty over his contract to try to soften the planned cost cuts, and there is evidence that they have succeeded.

Mr. Pischetsrieder said in February that Volkswagen would eliminate up to 20,000 jobs in an effort to be more competitive. Since then, he has played down the prospect of layoffs. Two weeks ago, the company signaled that it would not shut down an underused plant in Brussels.

Mr. Pischetsrieder still had roughly a year left in his contract, but German supervisory boards typically decide whether to extend the contracts of chief executives a year before they expire.

Analysts said the board vote was necessary so that Volkswagen could get back to the task of overhauling its operations. The turnaround plan, known as ForMotion, has a goal of lifting pretax profit to 5.1 billion euros ($6.44 billion) by 2008, a jump of 4 billion euros over 2004.

In March, VW said the plan had already exceeded its goal by contributing 3.5 billion euros to its 2005 earnings. But analysts said the core Volkswagen brand continued to struggle.

Excluding earnings from the Skoda division in the Czech Republic, Mr. Dudenh?ffer said the VW brand generated an operating profit of less than 340 million euros in 2005. That suggests, he said, that most of the additional earnings must have accrued from other parts of the company.

“The basic issue, in our view, is that they have not reduced their excess capacity,” he said. “If you have excess capacity of 1.5 million vehicles a year, you simply can’t be successful in the car business.”

Mr. Dudenh?ffer also argued that Volkswagen’s sales were buoyed temporarily in 2005 by the introduction of new versions of the Passat and the Jetta. With no new models of that prominence scheduled this year, he said, Volkswagen could not expect to record hefty sales increases.

The Passat and Jetta are still buoying Volkswagen in the United States, where the company has otherwise faded in recent years. It said Tuesday that its American sales rose 11 percent in April, and are running 20 percent ahead of last year’s pace in the first four months of 2006.

Despite his ambitions to make VW more efficient, Mr. Pischetsrieder is not viewed as a divisive figure. A courtly, diplomatic executive who ran BMW before coming to Volkswagen in 2002, he has moved cautiously in challenging the company’s entrenched interests.

“VW is a special company,” Mr. Dudenh?ffer said, “in which it is very difficult to make decisions on hard questions.”

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On Thursday, the influential chairman of Volkswagen’s supervisory board, Ferdinand K. Piëch, said that he expected the embattled chief executive, Bernd Pischetsrieder, to win a contract extension.

That was a remarkable change in tone from February, when Mr. Piëch threw Mr. Pischetsrieder’s future into doubt by publicly suggesting that he had lost the support of Volkswagen’s employees.

The company’s board adjourned a two-day meeting on Thursday without deciding on Mr. Pischetsrieder’s future amid signs of furious jockeying among Volkswagen’s major shareholders, Porsche and the state of Lower Saxony, and its labor representatives, who hold half of the 20 board seats.

Analysts said Mr. Pischetsrieder, 58, appeared to have shored up his position, though given the gamesmanship inside Volkswagen, they said it was too soon to conclude that he was safe. His five-year contract expires in 2007 and would normally be renewed a year in advance.

Volkswagen’s infighting has riveted Germans, for whom this company is no mere corporate brand name. With its potent mix of politicians, union leaders and Mr. Piëch, the mercurial heir to the Porsche sports-car fortune, the boardroom fight has all the elements of high drama.

“This is like ‘Dallas’ and ‘Dynasty’ in Wolfsburg,” said Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, director of the Center for Automotive Research in Gelsenkirchen. “No company in the world is so self-absorbed with its problems.”

Behind the skirmishing over Mr. Pischetsrieder’s job is a more fundamental struggle between Volkswagen and its workers: How deeply will the company cut jobs to regain its competitiveness?

Mr. Pischetsrieder and his chief deputy, Wolfgang Bernhard, have threatened to eliminate up to 20,000 blue-collar jobs in Germany. Volkswagen’s powerful union, IG Metall, is trying to force them to water down those plans. By withholding its support for Mr. Pischetsrieder, analysts and a senior Volkswagen executive said, the union is seeking to extract a better deal.

The prime minister of Lower Saxony, Christian Wulff, a Volkswagen director who supports Mr. Pischetsrieder, had hoped to vote on extending his contract at the board meeting, which began Wednesday evening.

But at a session of the board’s four-member presidium that afternoon, Mr. Wulff agreed to defer the matter until May 2, according to the Volkswagen executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the labor negotiations. The other participants were Mr. Piëch and two labor representatives, Jürgen Peters and Bernd Osterloh.

“The union is saying, Why would we give up our joker card? We’d rather keep it until we reach some kind of agreement with the management,” the Volkswagen executive said.

Some analysts see evidence that the union’s strategy is working. Volkswagen is unlikely to shut a Golf assembly plant in Brussels, despite months of rumors that it might move the production to underused factories in Germany. The prime minister of Belgium, Guy Verhofstadt, said on Thursday that Volkswagen had assured him it would not close the factory.

“The unions would only give up the Brussels plant if Volkswagen was playing hardball with them on jobs in Germany,” said Arndt Ellinghorst, an analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in Frankfurt. “But Volkswagen is not playing hardball, so why should they give it up?”

Volkswagen’s supervisory board discussed Mr. Pischetsrieder’s plan to overhaul the company and gave him approval to begin negotiating job reductions with the workers and with IG Metall. Mr. Pischetsrieder declined to discuss numbers with reporters after the board meeting.

Mr. Piëch’s motives are most difficult to plumb. In late February, he appeared to be laying the groundwork for Mr. Pischetsrieder’s ouster, saying there was a possibility that all 10 of the employee and union representatives on the board might vote against extending his contract.

On Thursday, however, Mr. Piëch appeared at the news conference with the chief executive and declared, “The supervisory board and I are satisfied with the progress that the management board has made.”

Asked whether Mr. Pischetsrieder’s contract would be extended, Mr. Piëch said, “For my point of view today, that’s the way I see it.”

Analysts cautioned against taking Mr. Piëch’s remarks as a definitive statement of his intent. Mr. Piëch was Mr. Pischetsrieder’s predecessor as chief executive, and the two have had a tense relationship, as Mr. Pischetsrieder has disavowed some of Mr. Piëch’s pet projects, like the Phaeton luxury sedan.

But Mr. Piëch has been criticized by some shareholders for undermining his chief executive. A German shareholder rights group said it would try to block a routine expression of approval of the supervisory board at the annual meeting, to single out Mr. Piëch for his actions.

Whatever Mr. Piëch’s qualms, some analysts noted that it might make sense for him to stick with the status quo. “Pischetsrieder is a consensus guy,” Mr. Ellinghorst said. “He is easier to influence.”

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