EPA may fine VW

[bobdbilder]

They shouldn't even try selling diesel to the US. But having worked for a German company for many a years; I would say they were asking for this. Its not the working culture of the German workers and engineers. I can almost feel their embarrassment. Its all about internal politics. We are talking about big fat rich family politics. Add to that the State politics and its a recipe for disaster. Never mind the US media endless harping on this issue. You know where this is heading; on top of increasing operational cost to make things right, there is no running away from cost cutting to save share prices. This means layoffs.

[RedDevil]

I wonder what's going to happen to the money obtained from the imposed fines.

We now have a lot of cars polluting more than they should (even if they still pollute less than many alternatives that do live up to the regulations).
Will the fines be used to mend that?
Will they be used to develop clean energy alternatives?

I bet not.
It just flows into the deficit. And leave the biggest car maker in financial turmoil, unable to fix the problem properly by themselves for sheer lack of funds.
They probably need to axe all their green development projects just to survive this.
Hooray.

[user removed]

The US deficit would swallow the total net worth of 20,000 billionaires (x $1,000,000,000). Add another 80,000 for long term commitments.

The total book value of every VW asset, assuming it could ever be assembled, which it can't, just goes down that bottomless pit, like the earth being sucked into a black hole.

regards
mech

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

I'm not so sure that Volkswagen would really come to an end after that scandal. In a worse-case scenario, it might reemerge with Chinese capital...

[oldtamiyaphile]

Given that they've been cheating, shouldn't we strike Team VAG from the top of the teams competition?

[niky]

Volkswagen has deep pockets, rich friends and good lawyers.

There's no way they'll be spending the astronomical sums some are predicting. They will definitely lose one to three billion dollars or so, but they can take that hit and keep going.

But the taint on buyer perception will be enormous.

Current TDI owners might still soldier on and may buy another if they're proven clean while still remaining economical.

New owners probably won't want to take the risk. At least not for the next three or four years.

[Xist]

VW is not considered to be "bad boys" now?

[Donahue]

Consider the used market too. How much are those TDI owners going to lose in value for their cars?

[California98Civic]

Originally Posted by Donahue

Consider the used market too. How much are those TDI owners going to lose in value for their cars?

It's all speculation still, but this Forbes article claims that VW TDI owners could lose $5000 per vehicle in resale value: The VW scandal could cost car owners $5,000 - Fortune

[COcyclist]

Originally Posted by niky

Volkswagen has deep pockets, rich friends and good lawyers. There's no way they'll be spending the astronomical sums some are predicting. They will definitely lose one to three billion dollars or so, but they can take that hit and keep going. But the taint on buyer perception will be enormous.

Current TDI owners might still soldier on and may buy another if they're proven clean while still remaining economical. New owners probably won't want to take the risk. At least not for the next three or four years.

IMHO VW will pull their diesels from the U.S. market which is too bad. It has happened before. To meet the current Tier 4 emissions standards they will lose some of the power and economy that we TDI fans have come to love. Many Eco-minded VW drivers already wish we could get some of their other products here like the three cylinder TDI Lupo that gets 70 mpg U.S.

I agree that this affects buyer perception. Keep in mind this is a company that brought to production a car that gets nearly 300 mpg on diesel but no one is talking about that now.