Volkswagen, which has based its brand image as one of the leading car brands to date, has unfortunately had to face a scandal that will tarnish this image. We know that German products are generally of good quality, so the group has been playing on its safety guarantee for its cars for years.
However in 2015, when Volkswagen is fully launched in the middle of a race with Toyota as the world's leading car manufacturer, the group receives a notification sent on September 18 by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that will bring down the car giant and give rise to one of the biggest industrial scandals in recent years, with colossal consequences.
The EPA criticises the Wolfsburg group for having equipped, for several years, the engines of its diesel vehicles sold in the United States with software that allows the results of anti-pollution tests (nitrogen oxide emissions) to be manipulated. The software activates an internal mechanism to limit polluting gases during controls. Investigators discover that actual emissions of nitrogen oxide - a gas that causes respiratory and cardiovascular diseases - are up to 40 times higher than the legal limit.
And the threat of a fine of up to $18 billion, or nearly 10% of the German manufacturer's turnover in 2014! Caught with his hand in the cookie jar, VW acknowledges its fraud and admits that more than 11 million vehicles worldwide are involved.
The consequences of this international scandal are immense: the manufacturer finds himself in a real turmoil. Its market capitalization is down by nearly 40%, CEO Martin Winterkorn is forced to resign, Audi's boss has been incarcerated and the group is the subject of multiple investigations and legal proceedings on all continents.
Beyond the technical aspect, the case casts aspersions on VW's internal management culture, fuelled by the setting of overly ambitious objectives. In the absence of being able to meet local requirements for certain pollutant releases, the decision to install fake software to improve environmental performance during test phases would have been the fastest way to
conquer the American market.
An offensive organised around a slogan that sounds very ironic today: "clean diesel".
Today we know that the Volkswagen group wants to stand out in the electric market by pronouncing eco-responsibility, but this case gives a rather negative image of the brand, as we can well imagine.
For VW, they have to be able to prove to their various customers that they have learned from their mistakes and that they can trust the German group again without blinking... The real question is therefore: is it really feasible knowing that the deal will go down in the annals of automotive history?
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