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TOKYO MOTOR SHOW: VW boss offers Japan an apology for 'Dieselgate'
Tarnished brand reconsidering diesel product offensive in the land of the rising sunVolkswagen boasts a 60-year history in Japan, but that hasn't spared the volume-selling brand from a massive downturn in sales since news of the Dieselgate scandal broke.
It's why Volkswagen's Representative Director in Japan, Sven Stein, and Dr Herbert Diess, CEO of the Volkswagen passenger car brand, were on the front foot in their respective presentations to the Japanese media on the preview day for the Tokyo motor show. Both men apologised profusely for the company's reported malfeasance, exposed by an American university and widely publicised by American environmental bodies.
The unveiling of the plug-in Tiguan GTE and the Golf Touran sharing the Tokyo stand was secondary to the damage control mea culpa.
Stein explained to the press that the company was embarrassed to find itself in this situation and had clearly broken faith with its consumers around the world. That is plainly a problem for a company that was about to launch diesel-engined products in Japan for the first time.
"We have therefore decided to review the timing of the launch," he said.
Dr Diess, apologising "on behalf of our entire company" also insinuated that within Volkswagen itself the scandal has shocked many who presumably knew nothing of the 'defeat device' engine management software until it made the front pages of the world's newspapers. It was those staffers Dr Diess appeared to be addressing when he said that it was "against everything the company stands for..."
Subsequently, Dr Diess elaborated on the situation in a chaotic vox-pop session during which the VW exec and two bodyguards were effectively bailed up by the media on the stand (pictured).
"It's still very hard for us to understand how did it happen. It started with, let's say, entering the American market with diesel engines. We have a full team of investigators working... It is an investigation [in which] many parties are involved, so we cannot disclose any results before the investigations are finished."
Dr Diess would not reveal any amount that Volkswagen currently holds in its war chest for sorting out customers' cars, but he did offer that it need not be as expensive as some industry pundits have suggested.
"We have a huge amount of engines, but most of the engines... only require a software update, which is a relatively affordable solution. Some of the engines might require hardware, but that has to be decided from now on, so the real amount of money [that] we have to provision for that probably has to be worked out in the next month.
The VW boss doesn't accept that the scandal could spell the end for diesel as a viable alternative to other fuels.
"We still think that the diesel has a great future; the diesel is still the combustion engine that is very efficient on CO2, on consumption – provided [it is] equipped with the right after-treatment...
Dr Diess said that "it's very early to evaluate" how the dieselgate scandal has affected VW sales in its various markets, but one industry insider has revealed that the Volkswagen sales rate in Japan has fallen by around 40 per cent. That reflects on the importance the Japanese place on corporate responsibility and integrity.
Asked how Volkswagen can hope to regain the trust of consumers, the VW executive admitted it would be "a long-term project."
"First of all, we have to fix the problems; we have to talk with our customers. We are very confident that we can do that within the next month. Then we have to really be able to explain how did it happen, what happened, and make sure that it cannot happen again."
But while Dr Diess has a plan of sorts for dealing with the human factor for consumers, finding out the whole truth is a challenge, and the full extent of the problem remains uncertain. He is confident, however, that driveability will be largely unaffected by any fix.
"The correct measures are not yet decided... and most engines we think we can fix with a software update – most of the European and some of the American engines – and we don't expect major changes in the car, so we think that we can recover the old levels of residual values, and the customers won't have any disturbances with the programme."
Prior to the Volkswagen presentation in Tokyo, the manufacturer had issued a statement declaring that the EA288 engines that are Euro 5 and Euro 6-compliant are definitely unaffected by the Dieselgate affair. The company has conducted a thorough review, it says, and no test regime-cheating software is incorporated in the engine-management software. Work will commence in January 2016 to rectify those cars involved in the scandal.
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Written byKen Gratton
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