VW Plots Come Back To Pertinence In U.S. Following Diesel Scandal.
Volkswagen is revealing its arrangement for re-selling a large portion of the autos associated with the German automaker’s diesel emission cheating scandal.
Volkswagen brand head Herbert Diess told journalists after an executive meeting at Volkswagen’s solitary U.S. plant in Tennessee on Thursday that the aftermath from the scandal “is something we have to live with” as the company tries to recover significance and market share in the United States.
“The brand suffered a lot worldwide, we are suffering still,” he said. “And for sure we are not through.”
It has been over a year since Volkswagen consented to pay more than $20 billion US to settle criminal allegations and civil cases identified with the company’s sale of almost 600,000 autos with “defeat devices” intended to beat U.S. emission tests.
The first group of retrofitted vehicles incorporates new 2015 models that went unsold after the cheating revelations. Dealers who got diesels as a component of Volkswagen’s buyback program will get the privilege of first refusal for those vehicles as they enter the utilized market, said Hinrich J. Woebcken, head of Volkswagen Group of America.
“After that, there are several channels to remarket them in a controlled way, so they don’t come all at once to the market,” he said. “We want to ensure the residual (resale) values of those cars remain stable.”
Higher-mileage and more heavily used vehicles will be scrapped.
The management meeting in Chattanooga comes as Volkswagen increase production of the new seven-seat Atlas SUV, the best illustration so far of the company’s shift away from its little auto roots and part of restored endeavors to end up plainly a volume brand in the U.S. The objective is to develop market share from beneath two percent to more than five percent, Diess said.
“It’s a long term plan, we can’t win America over in two years’ time,” Diess said. “It’s a 10-year plan, but we are committed.”
Volkswagen has affirmed it will present an electric version of its famous microbus in 2022, however no choice has been made about where to produce it. VW minibusses haven’t been sold in the U.S. since the 1970s, however a model of the new form was met with great fervor when Diess showed it off in California a month ago.
“We have a beautiful heritage with ups and downs, and we have the dreadful history now of the past two years, which was a very difficult period for us,” Diess said. “But we think that we get a second chance from the American customers.”
