Since the much talked “Dieselgate scandal” broke the internet about a week ago, the social media are having a blast shredding Volkswagen to pieces putting them in the spotlight, not without good reason though.
While other automakers are now also under scrutiny in case they have employed the same tactics, they are still innocent until proven otherwise, of course but VW, for its part, will have to endure the pain of its so-called “clean” TDI technology campaign backfiring big time.
Besides getting a multi-billion dollar fine in the U.S., the German company also issued a huge recall on 11 million cars worldwide that were fitted with the “defeat device” to cheat on the emission test.
Following the emissions scandal that has been pinned to the start pages of so many automotive media outlets, Volkswagen has been told to halt sales of vehicles equipped with the 2.0-litre TDI diesel engine across the market in the U.S. Other countries including Switzerland and Italy have also proceeded down the same route.
In Switzerland, the ban could affect as many as 180,000 EU5 emissions standard vehicles not yet sold. Meanwhile, the Italians are also looking at ceasing the sale of EU5 diesel VWs, but so far, they only seem to have stopped the sale of some 2,500 examples, much fewer than in Switzerland, for a country with a much larger auto market.
Italy has an estimated 1 million possibly blacklisted models on its roads at the moment, most of which are Golf Mk.6, 2010 – 2014 Passat and 2007 – 2015 Tiguan. In 2014, VW sold around 65,000 – 70,000 diesel vehicles in the country.
Well the damage is done, so Volkswagen is left with no choice but to wave the brand’s whole range of diesel a heartfelt goodbye, or fix them!
Source: EuroNews, tuttosport.com via carscoops.com
