Volkswagen might have more trouble to deal with if this goes through. According to a Reuters report, a committee of lawmakers has urged Britain to consider prosecuting VW over the “dieselgate” emissions scandal, accusing the government of being too slow to decide whether Wolfsburg broke the law.
Europe’s biggest carmaker admitted last September to cheating in US diesel emissions tests, which led to the departure of strongman CEO Martin Winterkorn and a battering of its shares and reputation. In the UK, 1.2 million cars were fitted with defeat devices but in April, a British transport minister said the firm had yet to fix any cars. That contradicted VW, which said that it had started making some software modifications.
Earlier today, Britain’s transport select committee, whose conclusions are not binding on the government, said VW should be punished to avoid a repeat of the scandal. “Without proper sanctions against manufacturers that cheat, there is little to stop a similar scandal from happening again,” it said in statement.
VW said that it was working hard to fix all of the affected vehicles in Britain. “Close to 50,000 vehicles in the UK have now received the technical measure, a number which will continue to increase as further vehicles’ technical measures are developed,” the German carmaker said in a statement.
Committee chairwoman Louise Ellman also called on Britain’s vehicle approval regulator, the Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA), to ensure that the solution proposed by VW will not lead to increased costs for vehicle owners at a later stage.
“We are concerned that VW’s fix was developed at the lowest possible cost which might lead to increased costs for motorists down the line. The VCA must make scrutinising manufacturers for non-compliance and questionable practices its first priority,” she said.
Earlier this month, VW said that Europe won’t be getting anything like the US$15 billion compensation package that it is offering to US customers to as settlement for the scandal. CEO Matthias Müller was quoted saying that a similar settlement would be inappropriate and unaffordable.
“We have a different situation here (in Europe),” he said, adding that while VW was on a solid financial footing, replicating the US deal in Europe would be tough for Wolfsburg to cope with financially. “You don’t have to be a mathematician to realise that compensation at arbitrarily high levels would overwhelm Volkswagen.”
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Malaysian VW owners are worse off than the US and European VW Dieselgate owners. Here, Malaysians were cheated by VGM for years. About 8 years ago, when people complained about DSG issues, VGM denied.
Every year since then, they have denied. Until 2014, when VW AG admitted in black and white that all DSGs cannot be used in hot countries and countries with bad jams.
Pity VW owners in Malaysia. they have suffered even worse than the US and EU owners. If they can get compensation merely for dieselgate, Malaysian owners should be entitled for more cause in Malaysia, Malaysian owners have had NON STOP continuous breakdowns of their DSGs.
Owners buy German, pay a premium for German but misled into buying a lemon that brings so much of problems. The whole purpose of buying a German is for quality and troublefree driving. Unfortunately Malaysian owners have to put up with non stop breakdowns.
And again VGM lies by telling that if you use mineral oil, all your DSG problems will be solved. Not true. Many using mineral oil also still facing non stop problems of breakdowns. The sad part is, for high performance car, one should use synthetic and not mineral.
Now, the biggest factor why VGM should pay compensation to all VW owners in Malaysia. Their RV jatuh to crazy levels. Because of the DSG gate scandal, no used car dealer want to touch any VW. 1 year old passats, sold for RM170k and now fetching only RM80k. But the worst part is, it is super difficult to sell. Put in mudah also, in 6 months, nobody even calls. Used car dealers also pantang want to touch it.
Because sales are so bad, our hero VGM made it even worse by selling their passat, Jetta and Polo in their firesales for nearly half price for a brand new car.
Somemore prices went down in the 2nd hand market. Now, those getting RM80k for their 1 year old passat, have to accept Rm60k, a big thanks to VGMs’s firesales action.
VGM has caused a lot of heartache and pain to VW owners in Malaysia.
It is high time lawyers take a class action suit to sue VGM and get some compensation for ALL VW owners in Malaysia
Which is more serious ? Dieselgate or Airbagate ???