I guess people got tired of driving boring cars with high resale value and luxury cars with missing front-ends. ;-)
Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker
21–30 of 216 posts
Re: Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker
#22One thing learned from: Volkswagen,airbnb,google,amazon,uber,facebook is to CHEAT. Illegal hotels, copyright infringement, skipping sales tax, fake cabs,profiting on personal data.. and now, illegal emission testing.
That's not cheating, it's "growth-hacking". :O
Re: Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker
#23One thing learned from: Volkswagen,airbnb,google,amazon,uber,facebook is to CHEAT. Illegal hotels, copyright infringement, skipping sales tax, fake cabs,profiting on personal data.. and now, illegal emission testing.
Life isn't a game.
Re: Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well in the US, Diesel isn't very popular so the impact won't be as big, but people in Europe at least are going to rethink about getting Diesel, and the governments there might reconsider the big tax break they give to diesel engine which are supposed to be cleaner than gasoline (making diesel cheaper at the pump than regular gasoline for consumers in Europe). Now we discovered that it's not only VW, but many car ma…
I thought it was only the tyrannically strict California emissions tests that they cheated on? The cars met standard emissions limits, unless I'm mistaken. Was it even an issue in Europe? I thought their standards were even more relaxed.
They were fined by the EPA it wasn't just a California thing. Other governments have also taken some actions:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal#G...
For instance, in Canada there is a buyback/rebate program.
Re: Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker
#25Can't help thinking/believing a fair number of people are going to encounter this headline in the media and think, "Too big to fail." As in, the fix is in, for such corporations.
Which will play right into the current political climate.
Re: Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker
#26Frankly this is a vanity metric anyways. Toyota's brake recall back around 2010 was directly related to its rapid global production expansion in an effort to become #1 in sales volume. Their QC and reliability/consistency across geographies suffered as a result.
Iirc the CEO himself was quoted saying the company lost sight of what should really matter -- making products that fulfill the needs and desires of their customers. (sorry, it's been many years so I can't really pull up the source)
When's the last time anyone's said "hey look at this #1 by sales volume car I just got"?
Re: Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the logical conclusion when you allow corporations to be 'people' without the consequences of being a person. How do you send a company to jail? Its kinda of like that scene in fightclub where Edward Nortons character talks about the cost of doing a recall. The emissions scandal should have ended VW. Solution: Guillotine for corporate crime.
Many people look at emissions testing as an annoyance and I doubt that outside of environmental circles that very many people cared. And it was diesel car emissions -- a niche of the US market that's almost invisible anyway.
It isn't their job to care. The job of a citizen is to elect officials to act in his or her (the citizen's) best interest. Another way of looking at it: regulations are a noisy approximation of how much people "care".
Re: Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker
#28Frankly this is a vanity metric anyways. Toyota's brake recall back around 2010 was directly related to its rapid global production expansion in an effort to become #1 in sales volume. Their QC and reliability/consistency across geographies suffered as a result. Iirc the CEO himself was quoted saying the company lost sight of what should really matter -- making products that fulfill the needs and desires of their cus…
[deleted]
Re: Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker
#29One thing learned from: Volkswagen,airbnb,google,amazon,uber,facebook is to CHEAT. Illegal hotels, copyright infringement, skipping sales tax, fake cabs,profiting on personal data.. and now, illegal emission testing.
Only works if you can raise billions really fast so that you can have the clout/means to get the legislators to bend the rules for you.
Re: Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm honestly not sure the public really cared about this - was anyone really surprised that this was happening? Most people I spoke to at the time seemed to be of the opinion that all the other manufacturers would be found out next. My friend bought a Golf the week after the scandal broke; I've bought a Golf GTI and a Polo in the last six months. They're just, well, pretty decent cars.
Well in the US, Diesel isn't very popular so the impact won't be as big, but people in Europe at least are going to rethink about getting Diesel, and the governments there might reconsider the big tax break they give to diesel engine which are supposed to be cleaner than gasoline (making diesel cheaper at the pump than regular gasoline for consumers in Europe). Now we discovered that it's not only VW, but many car ma…
Since VW has stopped selling diesels in the US, and said they don't plan to reintroduce them, I'm not sure a boycott of that drivetrain is going to have much effect on them.
Fortunately for Europe, most countries have been strengthening incentives not to buy diesel, since they have always contributed more to smog problems -- and the push away from diesel started long before VW got caught screwing the tests over.