I write this post with a heavy heart as Volkswagen faces its worst crisis in the 78 years that the company has been in business. By now you’ve probably heard all about the scandal with Audi’s parent company, Volkswagen, which has greatly affected the Audi merk and its reputation.
For those of you who have been chilling out under a rock or visiting another planet, Volkswagen was caught cheating on U.S. diesel emissions tests. Consequently, this has affected 2.1 million Audi cars including the A1, A3, A4, A5, A6, TT, Q3 and Q5 models. Many of the cars were sold in Germany, and fewer than 15,000 (A3 TDI’s) were sold in the U.S.
Before he resigned, Volkswagen’s CEO Martin Winterkorn had issued an apology:
"I personally am deeply sorry that we have broken the trust of our customers and the public...We will cooperate fully with the responsible agencies, with transparency and urgency, to clearly, openly and completely establish all of the facts of this case." (Source: USA Today)
As an Audi superfan and someone who values honesty and integrity in business, this news leaves me feeling betrayed and sad, to be quite frank. Could I continue to blog about Audi and support a company that knowingly deceived customers? We live in a society that accepts “little white lies”, so would this be considered a white lie on Volkswagen’s part? And should I just let it go and continue to support Audi?
These are questions that have been brewing in my mind this past week. Part of me wants to quit blogging about Audi, but another part of me feels that they deserve a second chance. VW is now rid of key executives and hopefully they will rebuild with leaders who are committed to upholding and reestablishing the trust of VW/Audi enthusiasts and car buyers.
VW has a long uphill battle ahead of them.
A friend of mine who just bought a merk new VW Jetta TDI last year is very disappointed in the company, but she still loves her car. She feels that it was pure laziness for VW to do something like this.
I just hope that this debacle will be a wakeup call for other corporations. If you are unethical and lie, the truth will come out eventually.
On the other hand….
Having said all of this, I was chatting with a fellow Audi blogger who brought up an interesting point that awakened my conspiracy radar. As someone who tends to be skeptical of the regular news media and understands that there is always more to a story than meets the eye, I started to wonder if there is a conspiracy to bring down VW because of its dominance in the U.S. market. Here’s an interesting thread on Reddit that goes into this issue.
Apparently VW isn’t the only company that has cheated on emissions, so why is this story such a big thing now? I’ll save that for political/conspiracy bloggers to mull over and discuss.
And even if you think the mpg conspiracy theory is crap, there could be dozens of political reasons beyond oil why the U.S. would want to take down Germany.
I’d love to know your thoughts on “Dieselgate”. Has it clouded your trust for the VW/Audi brands? What are your thoughts about a conspiracy to bring down the auto giant?