VW Group
-
The fallout from a global emissions cheating scandal keeps falling. This week, German authorities fined Volkswagen AG nearly $1.2 billion for selling more than 10 million cars with emissions-cheating software. The sum pales in comparison to the billions Volkswagen has paid in the U.S., which has totaled more than $24 billion so far, but is one of the largest penalties levied in Germany. In a statement, VW said it would pay the fine without appeal. "Following thorough examination, Volkswagen AG accepted the fine and it will not lodge an appeal against it. Volkswagen AG, by doing so, admits its...
-
Cutting carbon, meeting real-life emission tests, new electric cars to hurt profits, VW says
Well, that's awkward. At its annual media briefing on Wednesday, Volkswagen Group executives said the costs of meeting new emission tests in the EU, lowering carbon emissions globally, and launching multiple new electric models would eat into the company's profits. With the company's diesels in...
John Voelcker -
VW Group has nailed down $25 billion of batteries for electric cars, it said today
For a company that has only two battery-electric models in production, both several years old, VW Group spends a great deal of time talking about electric cars. The company has plans to launch 30 new electric vehicles by 2025, and has released four Volkswagen ID concepts, the first of which will...
John Voelcker -
In pictures: Volkswagen TDI diesels await their fate in Pike's Peak shadow
It might be the world’s largest single-company junkyard and pick-a-part business, if not for the prominent "No Trespassing" and "Drone-Free Zone" signs. Instead, it’s a massive storage facility in Colorado for thousands of disgraced VW and Audi TDI diesel vehicles awaiting whatever fate...
Andrew Ganz -
Volkswagen Moia electric mobility van is VW's Uber ride-sharing rival
Every automaker has its niche. Mazda builds a brilliant (and efficient) sports car in the MX-5 Miata. Toyota pioneered the mass production of hybrid-electric vehicles 20 years ago with its Prius. The Tesla Model S made battery-electric vehicles exciting and desirable. And Volkswagen has diesel...
Mark Stevenson -
VW extends dirty-diesel bonus in Germany; 8 percent traded for new electric car
A scrappage scheme in Germany launched by Volkswagen to take the dirtiest diesels off the road has been extended beyond its planned end date of this month. Two years after the diesel emissions scandal that cost it over $25 billion, Volkswagen is extending an incentive program aimed at owners of...
Mark Stevenson -
As it gears up for volume production of battery-electric cars starting in 2019, Volkswagen Group spends a lot of time talking to the press about its future plans for the vehicles. We already know its first electric car that year will be the compact hatchback Volkswagen ID, and the first to be sold in the U.S. will be the VW ID Crozz utility vehicle, in 2020. More than a year ago. Green Car Reports suggested the next generation of the VW Beetle might even go electric. DON'T MISS: Could future VW Beetle return to rear (electric) powertrain? (Oct 2016) That report was confirmed more than a year...
-
VW Dieselgate exec Schmidt gets maximum jail sentence: 7 years
A Volkswagen manager who pleaded guilty to deceiving regulators in the United States over the emissions of the company's TDI diesel engines has been sentenced to the maximum penalty of seven years in prison and the maximum fine of $400,000. "This crime ... attacks and destroys the very foundation...
Mark Stevenson -
Volkswagen ID Crozz electric SUV to launch in US in 2020
A production vehicle based on the Volkswagen ID Crozz all-electric compact crossover will be launched in the U.S. market during 2020, VW said. The announcement came at a media event Tuesday night before the first of two media days at the Los Angeles auto show, where the electric SUV makes its North...
John Voelcker -
Porsche will thrive, remain profitable when sports car are electric: CFO
Luxury and sports car maker Porsche isn't concerned with the sweeping changes vehicle electrification will bring. In fact, the brand believes it will maintain its steady profit and 15-percent operating margin into the future, despite the major investments in electric and plug-in cars it plans to...
Sean Szymkowski -
Volkswagen targets Pikes Peak with electric-car tech from future models
The next Pikes Peak International Hill Climb race is eight months away still, so a press release on a carmaker's entry into next June's event comes out of left field. But for Volkswagen, it's another small step to underscore its major commitment to battery-electric vehicles as its two-year-old...
John Voelcker -
VW plans for electric trucks and buses, starting production next year
Volkswagen Group has now detailed its aggressive electrification timeline for every part of its vehicle operations, including heavy trucks, setting lofty goals for zero-emission vehicles in the future. While Volkswagen works on the passenger car side of things, VW Group's commercial-vehicle...
Sean Szymkowski -
The long, strange, sad saga of the now-defunct Volkswagen Phaeton will likely go down as an asterisk in VW's long history. The pet project of now-departed VW Group chairman Ferdinand Piech, a member of the Porsche family that controls the carmaker, it was a $70,000-and-up luxury sedan from the German makers of the People's Car. It shared underpinnings with not only the Audi A8 but the Bentley Continental GT—and VW even built a new factory just to produce the Phaeton. DON'T MISS: VW says it needs '40 gigafactories' for electric-car batteries by 2025 That factory is now building...
-
VW Group makes 300 models globally, will electrify them all by 2030
Along with the gleaming concept cars and new production models unveiled at last week's Frankfurt auto show, auto-company executives also make news. Often a company's CEO or product chief will announce directions for the future, whether they're hints about upcoming vehicles or new powertrain plans...
John Voelcker -
Which company's electric-car success will surprise us? Poll results
Predicting the future is always hazardous, but for the auto industry, this is a particularly uncertain time. Four trends—electrification, connectivity, autonomy, and sharing—are coming together in a whirlwind that could rearrange the industry and its businesses within a decade or two...
John Voelcker -
Volkswagen ID Crozz electric crossover concept updated at Frankfurt show
Germany's giant VW Group has said, several times, that it will have 30 different electric cars on sale globally by 2025. Over the last year, it's unveiled three different Volkswagen ID electric-car concepts, two of them thinly disguised versions of future production models for 2019 and 2020. Now...
John Voelcker -
Want to buy a used, updated Volkswagen TDI diesel car? Your VW dealer will get first dibs
Updated Volkswagen diesel vehicles with new engine software will soon be back on the market, but those looking to buy one will have to wait for their local dealership. Volkswagen will offer the hundreds of thousands of modified diesel vehicles to its franchised dealers first, offering them a "right...
Sean Szymkowski -
Audi diesel: another shoe drops as top VW Group execs implicated
It has been nearly two years since Volkswagen came clean and admitted its "clean diesel" engines were actually quite dirty. In 2015, a VW engineer admitted the TDI diesel cars sold in the U.S. since 2009 were outfitted with "defeat device" software that let them pass emission tests, only to emit...
Sean Szymkowski -
Former Volkswagen employee James Liang was sentenced in Detroit on Friday to serve 40 months in prison and pay a $200,000 fine for his role in the global Volkswagen diesel-emission cheating scandal. It was a stiffer sentence than expected for an engineer who helped to create software that controlled exhaust emissions only when Volkswagen and Audi's TDI diesel cars detected they were being tested on rolling roads. Prosecutors had recommended, according to The Detroit News, a sentence of three years in federal prison and a fine of $20,000. DON'T MISS: VW, Mercedes, Opel, Fiat launch buybacks of...
-
VW, Mercedes, Opel, Fiat launch buybacks of dirtiest diesels in Europe
Almost two years ago, the Volkswagen diesel emission scandal burst into public view, and nothing has been quite the same since then. The news that VW Group engineers had deliberately cheated on eight years of emission tests for the "clean diesels" sold by Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche sent...
John Voelcker -
VW exec to plead guilty to diesel cheating charges after jail, house arrest
It has been almost two years since Volkswagen changed the prospects for diesel-powered cars when it admitted to eight years' worth of cheating on emissions tests for its so-called clean diesel vehicles. The effects of the German automaker's diesel scandal are still unfolding today, not only in the...
Sean Szymkowski -
Volkswagen's 5 electric cars start in 2019: what we know so far
As Volkswagen works to look toward the future, following its damaging diesel deceit, electric cars and plug-in vehicles will be front and center in its product publicity. The German automaker has already hinted at its future electric cars with a handful of concepts, but its first high-volume...
Sean Szymkowski -
EU investigating diesel collusion among Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, VW: report
As numerous political probes over the years have famously shown, once investigators dig into the circumstances around an alleged crime, anything can happen. The September 2015 announcement by the EPA that VW Group engineers had admitted to deliberate cheating on U.S. emission tests of the company's...
John Voelcker -
VW intends to price its ID electric car five-door hatchback aggressively
Volkswagen intends to take on the growing global electric-car market in an aggressive way, given the automaker's range of I.D. electric-vehicle concepts over the last couple of years. While a complete portfolio of electric cars will eventually find their way into production, the first high-volume...
Sean Szymkowski