Volkswagen, Europe's largest carmaker, does not see "light at the end of the tunnel" for its core VW brand until five years' time and results would remain unsatisfactory until then, the brand's top executive said.

Aggressive cost-cutting - with some analysts believing up to 30,000 jobs are at risk - would mean the large problems at the carmaker would be tackled by 2008 but profitability then would still lag behind internal return targets, Wolfgang Bernhard, head of the VW brand, told journalists at the LosAngeles motor show.