Well you’re the one who asked.
Can someone guesstimate as to how many people had to have been in on this purposeful deceit?
I’m guessing the CEO is probably not the programmer, but I have no real idea.
I’d like to know this too. As a WAG, I bet many dozens, if not hundreds, of people knew about this.
My totally-second-hand impression of automotive engineering is that it is a huge crisis if all the cars in June and July were assembled with a dodgy batch of parts, such that 10% of the parts will fail in a way that increases emissions. Fixing that crisis will involve (say) the powertrain reliability team, the emissions team, the engineers that oversee assembly, the team that designed the specific motor, etc. Right there, that’s a couple dozen people.
In the case of VW, multiply that by every distinct vehicle and engine made in the last six years. And multiply that by the typical employee turnover.
[QUOTE=Scylla]
Their stock is down big. This might be the biggest criminal enforcement action in corporate history. I think if you own one of those diesels, not only have you been deliberately duped by VW, but I think you are pretty much screwed. Your trade in value is likely to go way down. When VW fixes those cars it is almost surely going to impact performance, so you will end up with a car that is far crappier than you bargained for.
[/QUOTE]
This seems pretty Godawful. Class action forthcoming?
H. Something else is undoubtedly the answer: people in the Pit use BAD LANGUAGE–which YOUR GRANDMOTHER, Scylla, WOULD NOT HAVE APPROVED OF!!!
even if your state/region doesn’t do inspection tests, they can still move to deny registration renewals to known non-compliant cars.
:mad:
I will be curious to see if VW owners get a harder time from various DMVs than do these jackass “rolling coal” pickup trucks.
… and you think that means I’ll be happy with any answer even if completely objectively false? What planet are you from?
The state of Lower Saxony still holds 20% of Volkswagen voting rights, and until recently (2013) the corporate bylaws were such that the state could veto any major changes. Some of these rights were watered down in a 2013 EU ruling, but not all of them, and the German government still enjoys a few special privileges when it comes to control of VW.
Wowzer. Fuck Sony and also Fuck Sony.
I can only imagine the number of class action lawsuits across the US and other countries. Over and above penalties from governments.
They are totally screwed. Can’t see a reason why they shouldn’t be.
VW is a bit special, and while very different than Ford, kind of like Ford in how its voting rights work.
First VW is a subsidiary of VW AG, and it’s this group that’s owned by the Niedersachsen government. Controlling interest (greater than 50%), though, belongs to Porsche SE, which is itself a 100% family-owned company (thus my allusion to Ford’s structure).
Previously the Volkswagen Law did give Niedersachsen huge leverage over the families’ voting rights and the rights of the other proxy voters, but this is no longer the case, and when it was the case it was only applied for “major decisions” rather than day to day business.
To compare even pre-2007 VW to a SOE is a bit of hyperbole, I imagine, because the right to veto is not at all the same as the right to enact. The more likely scenario is that VW AG is “too big to fail,” not unlike the intervention of Bush and Obama to rescue GM and Chrysler in the USA.
All true, although the wiki article on SOEs does include VW in the list (with the acknowledgement that the definitions are vague and that there’s no exact threshold). I suppose the main value of the veto power was to prevent VW from moving their headquarters.
Even if you don’t accept that VW is a de facto too big to fail SOE, add in the stake owned by Qatar.
Or as originally said:
The statement, flatly made, is false. No definition of “state-owned company” requires 100% ownership by the state; only that the state holds a stake in the company that goes beyond normal stock ownership (as might be the cases if we were just talking about a sovereign fund investment).
If you don’t like the Wikipedia list, here is an Eonomist article that calls Volkswagen a “hybrid” that includes a “state-owned enterprise” component.
Definitions and conceptions are where we’re running into trouble here. From the Wikipedia article, “As a definitional issue, it is difficult to determine categorically what level of state ownership would qualify an entity to be considered as “state-owned”, since governments can also own regular stock, without implying any special interference.”.
I offer that when most people think “SOE” they think of a company that is primarily controlled by and whose profits primarily benefit the state, i.e., the government is the one, unique owner. Otherwise it’s fair to say that VW AG is a balthisar-owned enterprise.
Lower Saxony owns 12.7%, compared to QIA’s 17% and the Porsche family’s 51%. You’d be as well arguing that any company with a government as a minor shareholder is state owned.
Lower Saxony’s ownership stake entitles them to more than what they’d have by simply owning 12.7% of the stock. They get 20% of the voting rights. Ordinary private shareholders get fewer votes than their proportional financial stake.
Normally, this would still count as an ordinary minority stake. But Volkswagen still enjoys the unique position where major decisions require an 80% vote. This is inscribed in German law and exists for the sole purpose of giving Lower Saxony special influence over Volkswagen.
In contrast, Qatar’s stake only gives them 17% of the voting rights. This does not exceed the 20% veto threshold and means Qatar has no absolute control over major decisions.
That Porsche holds a majority interest does not mean that VW cannot also be an SOE. Complicated setups like this one do not easily fit into a single pigeonhole.
Balthisar’s comment that this is definitional issue is well-noted. I’ll certainly acknowledge that an argument can be made that VW should not be called an SOE. But the statement should be qualified, and to state flatly that it is not an SOE is misleading, given that the German government still enjoys special privileges over VW’s internal affairs.
The Porsche/Piech stake is now only 31.5%, though I expect they’ll be picking up a bigger holding on the cheap with the share price so low.