German automobile giant Volkswagen has been recently in news on account of the emissions scandal.
The Volkswagen emissions scandal began on 18 September 2015 when the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a Notice of Violation of the Clean Air Act to the Volkswagen Group.
What was the issue?
- The company had programmed their model year 2009 through 2015 turbocharged direct injection (TDI) diesel engine so that US standards nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions were met only during laboratory emissions testing.
- NOx emissions during driving were up to 35 times higher.
- The EPA classified this programming as a defeat device, prohibited by the Clean Air Act.
- An estimated eleven million cars worldwide, and 500,000 in the United States, included such programming.
- It has been variously estimated that the practice killed between 12 and 106 persons by diseases such as asthma and heart disease in the United States.
Effects of the Event
- Volkswagen became the target of regulatory investigations in multiple countries.
- Volkswagen’s stock prices experienced a major decrease in value.
- Volkswagen Group CEO Martin Winterkorn resigned.
- The head of brand development Heinz-Jakob Neusser, Audi research and development head Ulrich Hackenberg, and Porsche research and development head Wolfgang Hatz were suspended.
- Volkswagen announced plans to spend US$7.3 billion on rectifying the emissions issues, and planned to refit the affected vehicles as part of a recall campaign.
- The scandal raised awareness over the higher levels of pollution being emitted by all vehicles built by a wide range of carmakers, which under real world driving conditions are prone to exceed legal emission limits.
- A study conducted by ICCT (International Council on Clean Transportation) showed biggest deviations from Volvo, Renault, Jeep, Hyundai, PSA (Citroen, Peugeot) and Fiat.
About Volkswagen
- Volkswagen is a German car manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany.
- It was established in 1937.
- Volkswagen is the top-selling brand of the Volkswagen Group.
- Volkswagen Group is the holding company that was created in 1975 for the growing company.
- It is now the second-largest automaker in the world, behind Toyota.
- Volkswagen has three cars in the top 10 list of best-selling cars of all time compiled by the website 24/7 Wall St.
- Volkswagen Golf
- Volkswagen Beetle
- Volkswagen Passat
- With these three cars, Volkswagen has the most cars of any automobile manufacturer in the list that are still being manufactured, which includes model names that span multiple revisions and generations.
- Volkswagen means “people’s car” in German.
- Its current international slogan is “Das Auto” (“The Car”).
