AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)03/31 Report--

The Volkswagen Group said the diesel cheating scandal has so far caused Volkswagen to pay a fine of 31.3 billion euros (about 245 billion yuan) and a settlement, foreign media reported. Volkswagen expects the losses to last until 2021, and the group says it is ready for the money.

The Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal was revealed in 2015, when Volkswagen admitted that it had controlled the software of some diesel engines to run only during regulatory tests and shut down during normal driving, thus avoiding excessive emission tests. but the actual emissions are all 10-14 times higher than the standard. It is understood that there are about 11 million Volkswagen diesel vehicles installed with cheating software worldwide, including some diesel vehicles of Porsche and Audi.

Over the past four and a half years, Volkswagen has been subject to numerous regulatory investigations and lawsuits, and cumulative losses continue to rise, which will take years to resolve.

In 2019 alone, Volkswagen's special expenditure reached 2.3 billion euros (about 18 billion yuan). Frank Vettel, Volkswagen's chief financial officer, said special spending was expected to reach 2.9 billion euros in 2020 and fall to 1.2 billion euros in 2021. A spokesman for Volkswagen said the group had prepared the cash flow it needed.

In 2020, Volkswagen Group has been heavily fined by many countries. In January, Canadian prosecutors approved a fine of about $150 million on Volkswagen. Regulators in Poland and Australia also imposed huge fines on Volkswagen. In addition, nearly 100000 car owners in the UK recently filed a class action lawsuit against Volkswagen Group, demanding that Volkswagen be held responsible for "emissions cheating" and "misleading consumers".

In February this year, a class action lawsuit involving hundreds of thousands of car owners in Germany, which has plagued Volkswagen for a long time, was also resolved. Volkswagen has reached an agreement with the German consumer group VZBV on the emissions door class action to settle claims from hundreds of thousands of diesel car owners. Volkswagen said it had agreed to pay 830 million euros and would make every effort to provide an one-time payment as soon as possible.

Although it has been four and a half years since the emission gate, the relevant lawsuits and fines are still not over, which will be a long-lasting "nightmare" for Volkswagen and make it pay a heavy price.

Fortunately, Volkswagen is not involved in the sales of cheating diesel cars in China, which contributes most to Volkswagen's sales. Half of Volkswagen's annual sales come from China, and nearly 40% of Volkswagen Group's sales come from China.

As the COVID-19 epidemic continues to spread, Volkswagen Group is also in trouble again, in addition to the Chinese market, many other areas have been suspended production, suspension of sales. Volkswagen CEO Dis also "complained" that at the time of the pneumonia epidemic, only China contributed to Volkswagen Group's revenue, and there was no revenue in other markets.

Deiss also said that the impact of the novel coronavirus epidemic on the automobile industry may be lasting, although Volkswagen is ready to deal with it, but the epidemic has a significant impact on the group. As the current global epidemic is serious, he said, "We only have sales in China now." Demand has hit rock bottom. Mr. Deiss said that if the novel coronavirus pandemic cannot be controlled like in China, layoffs may have to be laid off because there is no sales or revenue in markets outside China and still has to bear high fixed expenses of about 2 billion euros (15.8 billion yuan) a week.

However, Deiss added that Volkswagen had liquidity of 21.3 billion euros at the end of last year and that Volkswagen does not need government bailout funds at present.

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat