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VW sees the end of the diesel crisis in three to five years

2020-09-14T17:02:19.063Z


The VW manipulation scandal arose five years ago and plunged the group into its greatest crisis. Now he is getting rid of his US minder, but board member Hiltrud Werner warns: "We still have a long way to go."


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Volkswagen plant on the Elbe Lateral Canal in Wolfsburg: from diesel offender to global electric car pioneer?

Photo: imago images / MiS

On September 18, 2015, the VW Group received a letter that threatened the existence of the entire group.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accused the world's largest automaker for years of manipulating the engines of its diesel vehicles.

VW faced fines in the double-digit billions, the share price plummeted, and the entire auto industry fell into disrepute.

The diesel drive, which had been an export hit from BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen for years, degenerated into a slow-moving business. 

Five years later, the group seems to have survived the worst.

Just a few years after Dieselgate, VW - at least until the Corona outbreak - again set new records for sales and profits.

On Monday, Volkswagen also closed an important chapter in coming to terms with the affair.

The company announced that US watchdog Larry Thompson has completed his investigations.

The American lawyer has now officially certified that the company has learned from the affair.

The necessary precautions have been taken to ensure that there is no longer a second diesel gate.

Volkswagen is "a better company today than it was three years ago," explains Thompson.

In the summer of 2017, he took up his mandate as a so-called US monitor on behalf of the American judiciary - and monitored the restart of the VW Group with a team of more than a hundred employees.  

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Is the scandal now finally history?

Hardly likely.

Even the VW group, which would rather leave the affair behind today than tomorrow, warns against jumping to conclusions.

"The monitor has officially certified that we are on the right track in the long term," said Volkswagen's legal director Hiltrud Werner to SPIEGEL.

"Now we have to prove that we deserve this trust."

Thompson's departure is "a milestone, but not the end," says Werner, "we still have a long way to go." 

At the end of his mandate, Thompson had one more one-on-one meetings with all of the key top managers.

All VW board members are now obliged to take responsibility for law and morality.

In future, Porsche boss Oliver Blume will be responsible for environmental law and management on the Group's board of directors.

Human Resources Director Gunnar Kilian must ensure that the new VW Code of Conduct is actually communicated in personnel and management training.

CFO Frank Witter has pledged to make enough money available for all of these measures.

The result: Should Dieselgate repeat itself, it will be much more difficult for top managers today to simply shift the responsibility onto lower-ranking technicians and engine builders - as it did after September 18, 2015. To this day, the company denies that board members were involved in the millions of diesel fraud .

The judiciary judges the case differently: Last week, the Braunschweig Regional Court approved charges against ex-Volkswagen boss Martin Winterkorn for serious fraud.

Former Audi boss Rupert Stadler, who like Winterkorn rejects all allegations, will soon have to go to court.

Volkswagen itself no longer has to fear incalculable penalties.

The company has long negotiated billions in comparisons with the American and German judiciary.

Overall, Volkswagen's legal costs add up to a good 30 billion euros.

For legal director Werner, the whole affair is only over "when the last trial against an individual is over".

That could take another three to five years.

"So the diesel crisis is far from over," said Werner.

Above all, the group must regain lost reputation with customers and authorities.

"Trust is quickly destroyed," says Werner, "but it takes a long time to rebuild."

Among other things, VW is trying to be included again in the Global Compact, a global sustainability pact between the United Nations and leading commercial companies.

After Dieselgate, Volkswagen had to leave the prestigious alliance.

A return of the car company would send an important signal: After all, Volkswagen wants to transform itself from a diesel offender to a global electric car pioneer.

If the planned cultural change should fail, however, VW will face a real problem - at least according to the US monitor.

"A second diesel scandal," said Larry Thompson in an interview with SPIEGEL last year, "Volkswagen would not survive."

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Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2020-09-14

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