VOLKSWAGEN EMISSIONS SCANDAL
Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view. This definition so aptly fits the Volkswagen emissions debacle that started on the 18th September 2015. Pertaining to software installed in certain diesel powered vehicles, specifically designed to cheat on emissions tests, after realizing that their new EA 189 diesel engine, could not meet the EPA pollution standards. This was called a "cheats device" and matched to engines fitted to all 2.0L diesel vehicles manufactured between 2009 and 2015. This amounts to some 11 million vehicles, 8 million of which were sold in the European Union. As many as 5-million of the 11 million were VW vehicles and the remainder shared by Audi, Seat and Skoda brands. All of them spewing out noxious Nitrous Oxide approximately 40 times more than permitted by law.
This emissions debacle is a controversy of global proportion, in fact it is the greatest controversy of both the 20th and 21st centuries, perpetrated by the largest carmaker globally. This reckless behaviour more than emphasizes Volkswagen's total disregard for the Kyoto Protocol and borders on disrespecting all its signatories including the commitment of their motherland Germany towards the GHG Emission Control Process. Not to mention the arrogance and the utter contempt their actions displayed towards the global masses and subjecting them to breathing Nitrous Oxide. Some people at VW took this as a joke, but nobody is laughing (pun intended).
To date, this controversy has been referred to by several other names, amongst which are "Dieselgate", Volkswagen Diesel Car emissions scandal, EA 189 scandal, Volkswagen emissions testing debacle, Volkswagen emissions violations, Volkswagen's diesel debacle, Volkswagen emissions cheating device scandal, etc...and cost Volkswagen AG their reputation.
Reputation is everything, especially in this current day and age of social media that is able to disseminate news so fast, that any rock solid reputation can be destroyed in a matter of minutes. This is exactly what has happened to Volkswagen who has had a sterling reputation for most of its 78 years of operation, up to and until Volkswagen executives admitted to the fraud perpetrated by a small group of people within the company. This resulted in the forced resignation of CEO Prof. Dr Martin Winterkorn (former CEO of BMW) and several top executives at the head of the R&D departments.
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| “I am shocked by the events of the past few days. Above all, I am stunned that misconduct on such a scale was possible in the Volkswagen Group. As CEO I accept responsibility for the irregularities that have been found in diesel engines and have therefore requested the Supervisory Board to agree on terminating my function as CEO of the Volkswagen Group. I am doing this in the interests of the company even though I am not aware of any wrong doing on my part. |
Thus far Volkswagen has apologized, taken responsibility for their wrongs and committed to cooperate with authorities as well as demonstrated their proactive approach to fixing this problem by recalling those vehicles affected. However, its going to take a lot more than a few websites for their loyal customers to self verify if their vehicles are infected with the "dubious software bug" or not, that is at the core of the "Dieselgate scandal". Like Volkswagen's reputation, the resale value of Volkswagen AG’s cars has also taken a downturn, falling an average of 13% for diesel and 2% on petrol vehicles since the emissions debacle came to light.
Whether or not Volkswagen will recover from a scandal of this magnitude is largely dependent on the company's leadership who needs to be open and transparent in order to gain back the trust of their loyal customers and that of the general public. This task fell on the newly appointed CEO Matthias Mueller, a former Porsche executive, who already announced drastic cuts. VW launched an internal investigation led by a team of US lawyers in order to get to the bottom of the scandal. Today Wednesday 7th October 2015, VW is compelled to provide a road-map to German regulators as to how it intends to make the affected cars legally compliant to EPA emissions guidelines. One thing we can all be certain of, is that Volkswagen has their work cut out for them.
