421–430 of 632 posts
Hmm did they release their April 1 joke too early by mistake?
https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/30/22357166/volkswagen-name-... > The proximity of the name change to April Fool’s Day initially raised suspicions that it was just a joke. But VW insists that it’s a real thing, so here we are.
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My dad used to joke that if you wanted sneakers that were not made by child labor, your best bet was whichever manufacturer last got into trouble for it because of all the extra scrutiny. That this level of fatalism about immoral acts exists is a failure of society as a whole. I suspect that all of those who got rich either knowingly or being willfully ignorant about emissions cheating walked away completely unpunish…
I always found it odd that Americans have no problem with child labor at home, so long as it’s confined to movies and entertainment. We even have special laws just to make it legal when every other form of child labor is outlawed. It’s absolutely not the same as a sweatshop, but hollywood has a long track record of ruining children’s lives for profit.
Why do movie studios hire children? Because the script calls for a child. Union regulations and price floors can be put in place to protect the child actor’s interests without completely defeating the purpose of hiring them in the first place.
Even though child actors tend to be considerably more expensive than adults, they still get cast. I don’t think that would’ve happened in sweatshops.
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From what I have seen VW had a sort of genuine reckoning with the whole diesel issue. They have reinvented themselves, shed cruft, cut all fuel vehicle development and completely devoted themselves to an electric future (vehicles, batteries, chargers). They have turned things around wholesale and are now producing amazing, relatively affordable electric vehicles (their new id.4 SUV will debut in the US for just a lit…
So can I now go into a VW / Audi dealer in North America and buy an EV off a lot? Because every time I look (and I've looked constantly since I traded my Jetta TDI for cash in dieselgate) I still can't. And they are issuing a new press release every few months promising mass production EVs next year. Back in 2017/2018 when this all went down they actually removed all electrified cars from their lineup. Stopped making…
This is false, the ID4 is already being sold in US. ID3 is in fact not going to US.
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I guess Tesla and Faraday were already taken. This is ridiculous. I hope this is a case of an April fools joke delivered according to German punctuality.
Personally I'm a fan of fluidity. I have no problem with voltswagen as an aka. Why not. Brand names change, evolve. If it is a deadpan joke, I kind of like it too. Overall, I can see no reason for outrage of any kind.
Pronunciation is no longer “folks wagen” but “faults wagen”. The classic German ironic sense of humor.
I previously owned a VW, but swore on my life that I'd never buy another one after the emissions cheating scandal. There are plenty of reasons why a VW likely wont be my next choice, but I'm softening my stance a bit. What they did was absolutely reprehensible, but I later learned that the more accurate story is that they bore the brunt of media attention for something that nearly every auto manufacturer was later fo…
My dad used to joke that if you wanted sneakers that were not made by child labor, your best bet was whichever manufacturer last got into trouble for it because of all the extra scrutiny. That this level of fatalism about immoral acts exists is a failure of society as a whole. I suspect that all of those who got rich either knowingly or being willfully ignorant about emissions cheating walked away completely unpunish…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My dad used to joke that if you wanted sneakers that were not made by child labor, your best bet was whichever manufacturer last got into trouble for it because of all the extra scrutiny. That this level of fatalism about immoral acts exists is a failure of society as a whole. I suspect that all of those who got rich either knowingly or being willfully ignorant about emissions cheating walked away completely unpunish…
I always found it odd that Americans have no problem with child labor at home, so long as it’s confined to movies and entertainment. We even have special laws just to make it legal when every other form of child labor is outlawed. It’s absolutely not the same as a sweatshop, but hollywood has a long track record of ruining children’s lives for profit.
From my understanding, the "special laws" put hard caps on the amount of hours that a child can work in a week, and establishes a bunch of other protections like making sure they get adequate schooling, etc.
In a film with a child in a lead role, the entire movie production schedule often revolves around this hard hours limit.
Perhaps a larger tragedy is children working in family businesses. Poor, legal immigrant families often put their children to work at the family restaurant, and this is legal for any number of hours.
As a clarification: they are only using this for EVs. https://www.thedrive.com/news/39984/vw-says-its-officially-d... Which is still…a choice.
The Voltswagen text badge will be on EVs only, but the gas cars will still be sold through the Voltswagen US branding. The gas cars will keep the classic VW logo.
This is what happens in a meeting when someone says "there are no bad ideas". This is the sort of three beer spitballing that normally you come up with as a gag and yet they're committing to it, and whilst it's US only the likelihood is they'll do some aggressive product placement and get some global recognition around it.