Big scandals have a way of sticking around for a while. Not just days or weeks, but years.
That’s the case with Audi, which is now facing a new investigation in Germany for falsifying documents, mileage readings, and vehicle identification numbers (VINs) in South Korea, going back to 2013.
One unnamed employee was convicted of fraud in South Korea last year and sentenced to 18 months in prison for tampering with documents. The tampering was done to make vehicles look legal and certified for sale in that country.
That case is linked to this new investigation, and this new investigation is indirectly related to the Dieselgate issues that have plagued the company for some time now. Reports indicate that so far, the spotlight is being trained on three employees who aren’t board members.
“We have three suspects, but there could be more,” Karin Jung, a Munich prosecutor, told The Wall Street Journal.
Although an internal Audi audit reportedly found evidence of malfeasance in 2016, it was a Dieselgate-related raid by German authorities in 2017 that led the authorities to learn about the information. Audi wasn’t obligated to self-report this information. After the raid, German authorities looked over the report and decided to launch a new investigation.
Reports further speculate that an unnamed Chinese gang is somehow involved in all this – but it’s not clear how.
Audi sales have dropped 7 percent in Europe this year thanks to new emissions tests, and demand for diesels is down.
[Images: Audi]
In other news, Volkswagen shortens electronic correspondence records retention time from 2 years to 10 days….
I’m starting to think that the primary benefit of incorporating is ability to conspire…..
I thought I loved my Range Rover 10 years ago.
Then I seriously thought about my 3 hondas and 1 subaru before and after.
When i examined the total experience, the joke was on me. I will NEVER buy another European car again. Especially a VW group product.
No Friggin way. I ll buy a GGM Hencho special before i do that.
And?
This is inside baseball stuff that nobody buy car nerds cares about. To the average car shopper, it’s meaningless. I buy a car based on whether I like the car, not what some exec of the car maker did or didn’t do 5 years ago.
Fundamentally this is about corporations deceiving the public. If regulation enforcement is so relaxed that they didn’t catch this blatant criminal business practice then it is reasonable to conclude that we have no idea to what degree we are being harmed by other illegal activities underway right now.
When there is an imbalance between an organizations power/capability and the policing agencies reach consumers will always end up being harmed…
That’s simply not true. There are a whole bunch of former TDI owners who care very deeply about VAG’s malfeasance whether they’re car nerds or not. And you can bet environmental-types care, too.
There are also environmental types who don’t see VW’s corporate wrongdoing/environmental transgressions as being particularly unique within the corporate world – although the notoriety/criticism has indeed been overwhelming.
Take a drive down a busy interstate, with tractor-trailers; one can smell and see some of them from hundreds of yards, to say the least.
Whether right or wrong, those filthy stinking semis aren’t breaking the law or defrauding consumers.
“Whether right or wrong, those filthy stinking semis aren’t breaking the law”
they are if the emissions equipment has been removed.
VAG…WHAT A DISGRACE!!!
I’m wearing my surprised face right now.
What’s the problem? I did not get it. Japanese do it all the time. Like bribes falsifications. Remember Olympus scandal. Or Fuji-Xerox more recently in Australia or New Zealand. Mitsubishi anyone?
That doesn’t make it right. If you have evidence the Japanese are cheating on emissions, put it out there so they can feel the hammer too.
Why should criticism of corporate wrongdoing be limited only to emissions issues? Is there some reason that unintended acceleration, slow-walked safety recalls, exaggerated fuel-economy claims (which result in higher purchases of more-guzzling cars, thus increasing total emissions) – are to be disregarded as ‘not really’ dishonest?
So what’s new?
Vorsprung durch betrug.
Poor VAG, full of rouge employees.