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The question is, whether VW as a German company is now going to end up being beaten by US competitors which could do even more nasty stuff unpunished.
by izacus 1y ago
The question is, whether VW as a German company is now going to end up being beaten by US competitors which could do even more nasty stuff unpunished.
- LunaSea 1y agoGermany is free to prove that these companies are cheating as well.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- thatguy0900 1y agoWe should let our executives commit crimes lest they be outcompeted by other executives committing worse crimes is a terrible argument. It's more a argument for not letting the other company compete as easily in your country
- dguest 1y agoNot to mention that it assumes assumes lying, cheating, and corruption is just the price you pay for quality products. Seriously, if people are framing this in terms of "what's good for industry" vs "what is the right thing to do", the crooks have already won and your national industry has already lost.
- izacus 1y agoIf our companies get destroyed, people fired and US/Chinese crooks win while EU spirals into recession, moral high ground is going to be a poor comfort.
- bratwurst3000 1y agoif vw for example would „get destroyed“ it would be more that some other company woulf take over control and do the job hopefully right. The company is the whole thing. production, workes, industrial plant etc… that wont go away if you take away upper management and stock owners.
- lucianbr 1y agoIt has been some years since VW had to give up cheating on emission tests. Were they beaten by US competitors during this time? I have not read any news about it.
- FridayoLeary 1y agoThey have kind of abandoned diesel engines, which the whole scandal was based around. It became clear that it would be impossible to create diesel engines which would comply with enviromental standards, which is a shame since they are more efficient and it is consumers who are losing out. They are still one of the main automotive conglomerations today. If anything American car companies are losing the market in Europe, Ford for example have abandoned their best selling model - the Focus, and in the UK at least they are the only US brand besides for Tesla.
- lucianbr 1y agoI could be wrong but I think BMW and Mercedes still make diesel engines. So maybe it's only impossible at a lower price point? Although the difference isn't that large.
- FridayoLeary 1y agoEven VW never stopped selling diesel cars, but they are certainly being phased out everywhere and it's not as popular as it once was.
- lhoff 1y agoVW still builds and sells Diesel engines in its Cars. For Volkswagen and Skoda the share of diesel cars was about 30% in Germany. Source (only in German and behind paywall, sorry) https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/468422/umfrage/pkw-neuzulassungen-diesel-anteil-der-automarken/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/468422/umfrag...
- Symbiote 1y agoUsing [1], BMW have 87 models, of which 13 can be electric, 13 plug-in hybrid, 47 petrol and just 6 diesel. The six are all SUVs. Mercedes don't have an easy filter, but they do have some cars available with diesel engines, e.g. C-Class. Diesel is now down to 9.5% of new cars sold in Europe (Q1 2025), less than full EVs ([2]). [1] https://www.bmw.co.uk/en/all-models.html https://www.bmw.co.uk/en/all-models.html [2] https://www.acea.auto/pc-registrations/new-car-registrations-1-9-in-q1-2025-battery-electric-15-2-market-share/ https://www.acea.auto/pc-registrations/new-car-registrations...
- wil421 1y agoDiesel engines in the US have stricter regulations. I doubt folks in the EU will start buying PowerStrokes, Cummins, or Duramaxes anytime soon.
- FireBeyond 1y agoHow so? There is no way any of those engines would pass emissions in the EU. How are US regulations even stricter?
- pkaye 1y agoBack in 2015 US EPA NOx emission limits were tighter than EU regulations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal#Underlying_U.S._and_EU_emission_standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal#U...
- FireBeyond 1y agoI feel this also has a lot to do with the use of diesel. The number of passenger vehicles and light duty pickups in the US that actually use diesel is a fraction of what it was in Europe. The emission limits being for ULEV vehicles, I don't think I have seen a ULEV truck - indeed California classifies most under the LEV banner. None of this is to change the point around nitrous oxide emissions - the environment doesn't care whether it came from a VW TDI or a F350, just the amount. But it is also far far easier to implement such low emission standards in the US because we just don't really use diesel like that. And when you get to the heavy duty pickups (F250, F350, etc.), then most of that goes out of the window.
- rurban 1y agoThe standard are similar but testing is different. In the US every new engine has to be tested, in the EU only the first R&D engines need to be tested on standard automated test cycles. All subsequent engines not. This makes cheating trivial and manifactoring cheap.
- testing22321 1y ago
- pqtyw 1y agoWhat US competitors? Tesla is the only single American company that has had any success besides maybe Ford (but Ford Europe has a similar relationship to it's American parent company that Opel and GM used to have i.e. in a large part it's an European company)
- neilv 1y agoI'm not sure only the German market was meant by OP. VW has international sales, and OP's implication might've been that Germany has a national interest in VW being competitive.
- pqtyw 1y ago> only the German market Well yes, I of course meant the entire EU+UK market. Regardless besides US and a handful of other countries VW is hardly competing that much with any American car companies anywhere (besides Tesla). American car makers are still struggling a lot more in relative market share terms (GM+Ford+Tesla barely had over 33% in 2024 in the US). While VW alone had 26% in EU/UK/EFTA (just German companies have 39% of the entire market there)
- oblio 1y agoVW has just become the #1 EV seller in Europe.