Are we going to see a punishment that fits the crime?
To be fair, I’ve run across more than a handful of Volkswagen owners who are still not entirely convinced a crime has taken place. Oh, I don’t mean they disagree that VW fitted multiple model years of many of its badged diesel vehicles with cheating software; I mean there are people who think VW has been unfairly singled out or targeted, and others who don’t think spewing 40 times allowable particulate into the atmosphere is a big deal. They are not the loudest voices, but they are definitely there.
But now we’re at the sentencing phase of this long, drawn-out affair, and the numbers on the table are real — if you can sort through the car calculus (that David Booth has helpfully outlined), that is. And I’m thinking even those with extensive theories up their sleeve will change their tune rather rapidly because money does that. Lots and lots of money.
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While owners will have to parse the minutiae to come up with their own personal dollar amount, the fact remains that the combined buyback and punitive slap to VW for the 480,000 owners of affected vehicles in the U.S. and (not yet announced but no doubt expected) the 107,000 here in Canada, will effectively allow them to toss over their toxic beast and get something new. Good work, EPA and CARB. Excellent work, in fact.
Jim Churchill of Caledonia, Ontario, has two TDIs in the household: a 2013 Golf and a 2013 Touareg. Both were purchased new and represent his tenth and eleventh Volkswagen purchases. “I’m interested in what differences there will be in a Canadian settlement with regards to determining valuation; insurance in the U.S. uses Kelley Blue Book, Canada uses Red Book.” While his starting point won’t be clear until Canada announces its own program, Churchill laughs when I ask if the entire event has made him leery of sticking with a brand he has loved for so long. “I haven’t lost any confidence in Volkswagen. In fact, I’m waiting to see what they’re going to do with all those 2015s and 2016s that have been embargoed since this began.”
It’s a good point. Many of the third-generation cheaters can be fixed with a software fiddle, while many of the early ones would require too much of a retrofit to make financial sense. In the early days of the scandal, radio show callers out west pretty much told me they’d have to have their cold dead hands pried from their beloved VW TDIs and they’d be damned if they’d submit them for tinkering. This, of course, came on the heels of a Toronto woman who had parked hers, fearful for what she was doing to the environment. You can imagine the clash in philosophies between a Toronto tree hugger and a prairie cowboy. Before the announcement of very real compensation, conversations often felt like watching a tennis match between Al Gore and Jesse James. But oh how I think that money talk is going to change even the outlaws.
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Francois Desjardins of Toronto is another long-time Volkswagen customer and fan. His 2011 Golf Wagon TDI was his thirteenth or fourteenth; “I’ve lost count,” he says. In fact, he was in the midst of purchasing a new one when Dieselgate blew up. “I’d sold my wagon on September 14th. But because they were going to take delivery on the 21st, it got caught up in the announcement. I still have the car.” That’s actually why that $5,100 minimum in the American agreement for restitution is so important: Volkswagen’s admission of guilt and the long, drawn out – and most aggravating, silent – response has put all of the owners in limbo. “The unknown is worse than just knowing,” says Desjardins, echoing many callers and readers who have felt left in the dark.
A friend of mine from Texas – we’ll call her Emily – is on her fourth, and perhaps last, Volkswagen. “I call it The Smoggle,” she admits of her 2015 Golf TDI, purchased just six months before VW admitted short-sheeting the bed. She’d made up her mind about the Golf purchase happily, and assuredly. “I drove 200 miles to a dealer who had one in stock.” Now? Now, while she waits for final numbers and options to settle in, she’s already looking farther afield, and definitely outside of Volkswagen. Like most buyers, she thought she’d found the best answer for day-to-day driving, sporty handling, environmental impact and fuel economy. “I might as well have bought the Wrangler I thought I wanted,” she muses.
On top of the monetary makeup of the pending buyout offers, Desjardins points to the environmental impact: “I bought the car because I loved it; I was buying a fuel-efficient car that was winning awards, it was clean diesel! Now the thought that half a million cars or more might be just crushed is an insult to the environment, the whole process.” He remains uncertain of what his next purchase will be, and says not losing too much money will be a victory. Long-time Volkswagen owners sent a clear signal to the corporation with their repeated purchases; the company sent out its own clear signal to the world with its long-term, calculated cheat.
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The impact will be felt beyond Volkswagen’s borders, as diesel engines everywhere come under increased scrutiny. Ideas are being punted around from all quarters about what Volkswagen will do with hundreds of thousands of cars they’ll no doubt be able to buy back on the proposed and expected terms. Allocating to schools is a political win, parting them out, retrofitting where possible or calibrating software if buyers will bite are all nice ideas, but the fact remains that for too many of these cars, the cheapest, quickest death will be in a crusher. The overhead costs of doing the optically right thing will be onerous, and Volkswagen is probably hoping a fat cheque will square them with their customers.
For those owners, the long, drawn-out soap opera was more than just a master class in how not to run a public relations campaign. As we approach the finish line for them, the real work is just beginning for Volkswagen Group.