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The Volkswagen emissions fraud scandal is simmering again, with Volkswagen being sued by a German consumer group representing 400000 car owners in its home market. According to the latest foreign media reports, Volkswagen said a few days ago that it had proposed to pay 830 million euros (about 6.28 billion yuan) in compensation to quell the lawsuit brought against it by German consumers.

As early as September 2015, Volkswagen Group was found to have implanted special software into diesel engine control software to pass regulatory emission standards, but its actual emissions all exceeded the standard by 10 to 14 times. Over the past four years, countries have investigated the deceptive behavior of the public and asked the public to pay compensation to address the impact of emission pollution on the public and the environment. At the same time, the deceptive behavior of Volkswagen has also triggered a series of subsequent lawsuits and lawsuits.

In September last year, more than 400000 German car owners signed a class action over cheating in emissions tests, and German consumer groups filed a complaint with the court, and the deceived and affected owners demanded financial compensation.

German consumer groups have been negotiating with Volkswagen for months, hoping to reach a settlement with consumers who filed a class action lawsuit as soon as possible.

Volkswagen said on Feb. 14 that it had offered to pay a total of 830 million euros in damages to settle the lawsuit by offering compensation to diesel owners. However, the negotiations failed.

Volkswagen said in a statement that although settlement negotiations with consumer organizations failed, it should not be at the expense of consumers. The company also said it was difficult for the two sides to reach a settlement because lawyers representing consumer organizations charged too much, reaching 50 million euros.

German consumer groups said that the failure of the negotiations was due to Volkswagen's failure to guarantee the establishment of an expected compensation mechanism for consumers and would continue to strive for a settlement of the previous terms through the court.

The emission gate incident has dealt a heavy blow to the public, including the United States, Canada, Poland, Australia and other countries have issued huge fines to the public.

In January, Canadian prosecutors approved a fine of 196.5 million Canadian dollars (US $150 million, or 1.034 billion yuan) on Volkswagen after the company pleaded guilty to dozens of charges of violating diesel vehicle emissions regulations. This is the largest fine for environmental problems in Canadian history and 26 times the highest federal environmental fine ever.

In addition, Poland imposed a fine of 120.6 million zlotys (about 219 million yuan) on Volkswagen, the highest ever imposed by a Polish consumer watchdog; Australia demanded compensation of 127 million Australian dollars (606 million yuan). Recently, nearly 100000 car owners in the UK have filed a class action against Volkswagen Group, demanding that Volkswagen take responsibility for "emissions cheating" and "misleading consumers", and so on.

So far, Volkswagen has paid as much as 30 billion euros (234 billion yuan) for the "emission gate", including fines, vehicle modifications, lawsuits and other fees.

It is understood that there are about 11 million Volkswagen diesel vehicles equipped with cheating software worldwide, and 8 million in Europe alone. Volkswagen has successively modified the software for these vehicles.

Fines issued by many countries and consumer lawsuits mean that the emission gate is far from over. It will be a long-lasting "nightmare" for Volkswagen, and it will also pay a heavy price.

Fortunately, Volkswagen is not involved in the diesel scandal in China, the world's largest single market. According to the official sales figures released by Volkswagen Group, Volkswagen Group's global sales reached 10.9746 million vehicles in 2019, an increase of 1.3% over the same period last year, and won the top spot in global sales for four consecutive years. Among them, in the Chinese market, Volkswagen Group's overall sales reached 4.2336 million vehicles, a slight increase of 0.6% over the same period last year, accounting for 38.6% of Volkswagen Group's global sales, making it the largest single market for Volkswagen Group.

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