German automobile maker Volkswagen has been found guilty for tampering of emission results of diesel engines in U.S. This news comes as a severe blow to the premium brand that endorsed the use advanced technology in their new ‘Clean diesel’ campaigns making them an innovative alternate to the trending hybrids to cut a larger pie of the U.S. automobile industry but then things have not turned out in the brand’s favour.
Volkswagen attained the desired ideal results with the help of a ‘Cheat Device’ which were installed in the cars before it went for the tests. The software installed in the car tricks the emission check system and hides the vehicle’s true emission values of nitrogen oxide; it could hide upto 40 times the actual legal limit. Volkswagen has already admitted selling 4,82,000 cars with such tricked out results since 2009. The models which are a part of this cheat trick are the Beetle, Jetta, Golf, Passat and A3 sold from 2009 to 2015.
It is said that the company might be slapped with a fine of $18 billion or $37,500 per car. Also, all these cars have to be recalled, checked and fixed of this issue at the company’s expense. Many claim that more than the monetary damage, Volkswagen will suffer from a huge loss of trust and confidence of its existing as well as prospective customers.
Martin Winterkorn, CEO Volkswagen, has already issued an apology accepting the brand’s mistake. He has also confirmed that VW has ordered an external investigation in this issue. He assured that the brand will also cooperate with the responsible agencies maintaining the highest levels of transparencies as to provide the right and true information in the best way possible. The brand had recently launched campaigns on YouTube promoting Clean Diesel which too has been pulled down from the online social platform.
While the going has already gone rough for the Wolfsburg based in the U.S., VW will also be hearing music at its official base with the Green Party in Germany ordering a probe to find out if the tampering was done only in U.S. or the same was practiced in Germany as well.
Truly, the modifications in emission test results have come as dark clouds hovering the brand. As if fines, lawsuits, reputation damage and loss of trust weren’t enough, the negative effect on the environment has also extended to the company’s share value which fell drastically. The market value of the German brand collapsed by 20 billion Euros as the sentiments of share holders took a nose dive.
