Volkswagen Group intends to fire a group of employees implicated in the diesel emissions fraud scandal. German prosecutors in Brunswick have identified an inner circle of 39 “suspicious engineers” it believes contributed directly to the emissions cheating. It’s expected that VW will carry out these terminations as quickly as possible, with additional waves of firings to follow.

According to Handelsblatt, Volkswagen made the decision to cleanse its ranks after being granted access to the prosecution’s investigation files in July. The automaker followed up with a series of employee “interviews” and a month-long review process. VW has already announced the dismissal of six high-ranking employees, with former development head Heinz-Jakob Neußer (Neusser) being the most noteworthy.  Read More >

Midst the turmoil of a diesel emissions scandal and the crisis that followed in late 2015, there was a quiet but striking development inside Volkswagen’s U.S. showrooms.

Americans were buying Golfs. A lot of Golfs. More Golfs than at any point since Ronald Reagan was president. Volkswagen Golf volume nearly doubled, year-over-year, in 2015, and Volkswagen nearly sustained that level in 2016 before rising to a 31-year high of 68,978 sales in 2017.

A trend it was not. Seven months into 2018, Golf sales are nosediving. Read More >

Unsealed documents from a German prosecutor’s office shed light on current Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess’ knowledge of the costly diesel emissions scandal. Back in late July, 2015, Diess, having just taken the helm of the VW brand after arriving from BMW, sat in on a fateful meeting, German magazine Der Spiegel reports.

It seems that, for the executives at that table, the key to avoiding prosecution depends on how dumb they can claim to be. Read More >

Germany’s federal motor transport authority, die Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt (KBA), told dieselgate holdouts that haven’t yet fixed their emissions-cheating cars to get them repaired or prepare to have their registration revoked. In fact, officials in Hamburg and Munich have already taken several Audi and VW vehicles off the road.

It’s no wonder there’s cold feet among the citizenry. Reports out of Germany last year revealed that engines returned from the fixes behaving like a person suffering from an incredibly traumatic experience. They just weren’t the same anymore. Some units saw up to a 10-percent decrease in performance and likely ended up with a less-beefy torque curve biased toward higher engine speeds. Fearing that the Volkswagen Group’s “emissions repair” could effectively neuter their car, those abstaining from the recall are now left with no recourse.  Read More >

Fans of the Golf R, a machine generally accepted as being the most serious car … in the world, will have the chance to jazz up their ride with VW’s Spektrum Program, now available on the Golf R.

The program will allow customers to choose from 40 custom order colors in addition to the five standard colors. Price for such largesse? $2,500.

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In last week’s QOTD, we made a big list of cars that were considered the oddball choice among their market segment, but which you loved anyway.

This week we head in the opposite direction. We’re talking about the popular vehicles you loathe.

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As part of its penance for pumping untold amounts of smog-causing pollutants into America’s air over the span of roughly six years, Volkswagen paid a steep price. Yes, there was the financial cost of the diesel scandal — a price tag topping $20 billion, covering fines, buybacks, repairs, etc. Then there was the shame, with VW execs issuing public apologies so frequently, you’d think they were congressmen.

As fines and public apologies aren’t that uncommon in the automotive sphere, it’s the third act that must really grind the gears of execs in Wolfsburg. The automaker now has to do something no self-respecting car company would ever do: It has to showcase another company’s products, and not in a bad light. Read More >

The introduction of Volkswagen’s well fleshed-out Tanoak concept at this spring’s New York Auto Show showed just how versatile the company sees its Atlas midsize crossover. Sporting a reasonably useable bed and a design that’s more butch than that of Honda’s unibody Ridgeline, the Tanoak was made to tease.

Would Americans gravitate towards it? Could VW add a full-on truck to its lineup, bolstering its SUV push? These are the questions VW wanted answered before committing extra dollars and Chattanooga assembly plant space to the project.

Apparently, the Tanoak’s still in the running. Read More >

Our personal biases frequently lead us to condemn any number of advanced automotive technologies. That’s partly because we’re dinosaurs who fetishize vintage automobiles that, in reality, are actually far worse than we like to pretend. But it’s also because most modern-day tech sucks harder than a jet-powered Dyson. A large portion of that problem stems from automakers implementing technology solely to appease regulators or line their pockets with cash.

Fortunately, this isn’t always the case. You sometimes end up with things like power windows, torque vectoring, the dual clutch transmission, and satellite navigation. And while it’s still handy to know how to read a map, GPS has made car-based voyages a breeze, and it’s only getting better.

Waze, a preferred navigation app for many, offers community-confirmed accident information, fuel pricing, and speed traps. Since its purchase by Google in 2013, the system now finds itself baked into Android Auto. Things are progressing rather nicely, as a new partnership with Volkswagen implements features that cater specifically to driving enthusiasts.  Read More >

Large money transfers initiated by former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn early last year have German investigators wondering if the executive may have believed a criminal charge was incoming.

Already indicted in the U.S. on fraud charges stemming from the company’s diesel emissions scandal, Winterkorn (seen above with Yoko Ono) remains under a cloud of suspicion in his homeland. Though he’s claimed no early knowledge of the diesel engine manipulation, the former top boss remains under scrutiny from methodical German prosecutors who recently arrested Audi CEO Rupert Stadler.

Recently, the probe’s focus turned to large sums of money leaving the country in the lead-up to the U.S. indictment. Read More >

In the wake of Volkswagen Group’s diesel emissions scandal, VW turned its attention to electric vehicles. Yup, EVs, and many, many crossovers. Can’t forget those.

At the time, building the brand’s future EVs in America seemed like the right thing to do — good PR, and good penance for its dirty crimes. The plan’s still a go, as VW’s Chattanooga assembly plant has plenty of excess capacity, but it’s now focused on two particular models. Read More >

In case you thought the Volkswagen I.D. R’s impressive victory at Pikes Peak was a fluke, it managed another one over the weekend at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. On Saturday, Romain Dumas crawled inside the cockpit of the I.D. R and motored it up the hill in a blistering 43.05 seconds — setting a new record for electric vehicles.

The previous record for an EV was set in 2013 by Jonny Cocker, who drove the Lola-Drayson B12 69/EV across the line in an already savage 47.34. If you’re wondering what the all-time course best is, it’s 41.6 seconds — Nick Heidfeld drove a McLaren MP4/13 up the hill back when Goodwood still allowed Formula One cars to participate in the event. Compared to Pikes Peak, Goodwood is an exceptionally short and relatively simple course. But that’s like saying the sun is bright when you compare it to a desk lamp. It’s also unimportant.

The point is they are both stretches of road that allow cars to compete on an even playing field, and the I.D. R once again proved that electric vehicles have placed a target on the back of gas-powered performance.  Read More >

Even though the United States has already penalized and fined the crap out of Volkswagen for selling vehicles equipped with emissions-cheating defeat devices, the company remains in hot water. Earlier this month, Germany imposed a fine of $1.2 billion over the “dieselgate” scandal.

“Volkswagen accepted the fine and it will not lodge an appeal against it,” the company said. “Volkswagen, by doing so, admits its responsibility for the diesel crisis and considers this as a further major step towards the latter being overcome.”

On Monday, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals also upheld a $10 billion settlement between Volkswagen and the owners of 2.0-liter TDI vehicles that came equipped with the illegal software. The ruling pertains to roughly 475,000 customers. VW agreed to offer owners of the 2.0-liter diesels between $5,100 and $10,000 in compensation, in addition to the value of the vehicle. Read More >

Our fancy-pants Managing Ed recently sampled der neue Jetta, finding it to be a satisfactory machine but opining that the motor lacked punch.

Perhaps the engine in this Jetta will be more to his liking.

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Following Volkswagen’s disastrous, reputation-fouling diesel scandal, the brand quickly pivoted to utility vehicles in a bid to recapture lost U.S. sales. So far, so good on that front. The Atlas is a strong contender in the midsize field and the new-generation Tiguan saw a surge of buyers after VW added a third row and piles of length.

Still, the lineup isn’t fully fleshed out. While the old-generation Tiguan (called the Tiguan Limited) remains as a small crossover offering, that model disappears for the 2019 model year. VW hasn’t even named its compact successor, a model initially geared solely for the North American market.

Meanwhile, overseas buyers already have two small VW crossovers to think about — the T-Roc, already on sale, and now the T-Cross. Read More >