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Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker

bbc.com

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Re: Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker

#51

Post by Shounak »

usaphp wrote: post #35
tikhonj wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cheaper European brands like Skoda and SEAT also likely have significant volume. Skoda, for example, sold over a million vehicles—a non-trivial 10% of VW group's total. Audi sold something like 1.8M, probably with better margins than Skoda, so it's certainly a more important brand, but SEAT and Skoda aren't trivial either. Just in terms of car sales, SEAT + Skoda ≈ Audi.

Seat and skoda are only popular in handful of small European countries, vw is popular around the globe.

Skodas are quite popular in India

Re: Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker

#52

Post by wyager »

gonzo41 wrote: post #14
ransom1538 wrote: post #5

One 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.

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.

> This is the logical conclusion when you allow corporations to be 'people'

I like how people almost never understand what they're talking about when they complain about corporate personhood. How, exactly, do you think corporate personhood is responsible for the mentioned instances of "cheating"?

Here's why corporate personhood was created; to create a legal framework under which corporations could be more effectively sued. Corporations don't actually get the same rights as individuals; they can't vote, they don't get 5th amendment rights, etc. Corporate personhood is, in most respects, quite anti-corporate (in the sense that it makes it easier to attack corporations in court).

But of course, to people who never bother to read beyond the headline, it sounds like it gives corporations the same rights as people, so of course it must be some sort of evil robber baron thing!

Re: Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker

#53

Post by sitkack »

NamTaf wrote: post #44

For all the criticism about their cheating of metrics and rules, I recently hired a VW Polo Diesel for a month to drive around Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and France and found it to be a comfortable, performant, nimble and all-round decent car. It handled doing 160 down the Autobahn quite comfortably without steering judder or anything I'd expected at higher speeds. It accelerated surprisingly well (not even consid…

All that acceleration is enabled by it violating the environmental laws of every western country.

Re: Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker

#54

Post by dreamOfDDR7 »

nchallak wrote: post #42
gonzo41 wrote: post #14

Earlier 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.

There are a couple of hidden assumption here: 1. It is possible to punish a person for his crimes in a justifiable manner. 2. People are somehow deterred by punishment when the option of winning via cheating is available to them. It's very hard to argue that 1 is possible considering the ethical dilemmas that it exposes e.g. would capital punishment be a justifiable punishment for a murderer? If 2 were true, then the…

You forgot the premise of the 'outrage'

1) any entity, corporate or otherwise, must act without flaw or be dismantled. Big talk from one whom I doubt is running a top 5 company in arguably the most influential sector of the global market. The fallout of 'ending' VW is the forgotten factor. Try a little tenderness, who don't you?

2) the infrastructure that sustains VW is not a logo, or a brand name, it's thousands upon thousands of individuals, women and men who work hard to sustain that company so that vehicles are provided for a myriad of purposes. 'Ending' something if it has a flaw is like throwing away the baby with the bathwater. Why not change what needs changing and be less vitriolic? Are you shorting VW? Are you invested in Mitsubishi? Are you a Renault shill? Do you like speaking in hyperbole so as to clarify something without having to do the heavy lifting?

Obvy responses to poster above you if that wasn't clear to someone.

Re: Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker

#55

Post by wyager »

jeffnv wrote: post #2

I guess the whole 'cheating on the emissions tests' scandal didn't hurt them too bad. Here I thought it would destroy them. Silly me!

The EPA's restrictions were mostly arbitrary and too restrictive, in my opinion. The European rules are more than sufficient. I don't think there's much moral issue with breaking more-or-less pointless regulations.

Re: Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker

#56

Post by wyager »

sitkack wrote: post #53
NamTaf wrote: post #44

For all the criticism about their cheating of metrics and rules, I recently hired a VW Polo Diesel for a month to drive around Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and France and found it to be a comfortable, performant, nimble and all-round decent car. It handled doing 160 down the Autobahn quite comfortably without steering judder or anything I'd expected at higher speeds. It accelerated surprisingly well (not even consid…

All that acceleration is enabled by it violating the environmental laws of every western country.

> violating the environmental laws of every western country.

European nations aren't "western"?

Re: Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker

#57

Post by sitkack »

drenvuk wrote: post #49
mjfl wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life isn't a game.

I beg to differ. Life is most definitely a game. It has rules and winning depends on numerous factors such as information, skill, strength, luck, connections, etc. I would argue that all other games which have been created are based on a subset of the rules of the first game: Life. Every single rule can be broken, it just depends on if/when you get caught. You're still a cheater but as long as you can pay your way ou…

You will fit right in here.

Re: Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker

#58

Post by joecool1029 »

War_Machine wrote: post #10
jeffnv wrote: post #2

I guess the whole 'cheating on the emissions tests' scandal didn't hurt them too bad. Here I thought it would destroy them. Silly me!

They've only now, in 2017, started the return program for the vehicles mentioned in that lawsuit, so this statistic probably doesn't reflect those returns yet.

Sales don't factor in returns. If you sell a car and it's later returned, it still counts as a sale on the books.

In terms of bookkeeping, VW knew how much it roughly had to write off as soon as April 2016.

Re: Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker

#59

Post by wyager »

I'm well over 200,000 miles on my '98 Land Cruiser and looking for a replacement, but frankly, Toyota's current offerings aren't looking too hot...

The 200 series land cruiser is trending towards a suburb-mobile and is basically unsuited for offroad use, whereas the 70-, 80- and 100-series are awesome for offroading, even in stock off-the-lot configuration. The 4Runner is a decent offroad vehicle, but doesn't have the same legendary over-engineering as the Land Cruiser.

I might just try to keep my 100-series going for another few hundred thousand miles.

Re: Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker

#60

Post by RhodesianHunter »

wyager wrote: post #56
sitkack wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that acceleration is enabled by it violating the environmental laws of every western country.

> violating the environmental laws of every western country. European nations aren't "western"?

They violated European laws too, that's why they're recalling them over the next two years.
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