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Although Volkswagen Group has paid a heavy price for the fraud of diesel door emissions, including the imposition of exorbitant fines and the collapse of its brand image, the German carmaker has not been able to extricate itself from the aftermath of the incident. Volkswagen has said it is willing to pay 193 million pounds (1.632 billion yuan) as part of compensation in the UK market to resolve a class action lawsuit brought by British consumers over a diesel emissions scandal. On the same day, Volkswagen once again apologized to consumers in England and Wales and promised to rebuild trust.

Back in 2015, Volkswagen added a failure protector to the 2.0TDI diesel engine in order to pass the EPA emission test, and designed a software mechanism: if the device detects that it is currently in a laboratory environment, it will turn on the exhaust purification device, but if it is detected that it is driving normally outside, it will choose to turn off the exhaust purification device. In other words, Volkswagen cars will obviously emit emissions when they are on the road, but under laboratory tests, there is no problem with the test results, which quickly attracted the attention of local consumers and institutions.

On September 18, 2015, relevant departments in the United States revealed that some of Volkswagen's products were falsified by software control in their emission tests in the United States. a total of about 482000 diesel vehicles were affected, and the vehicles suspected of cheating were loaded with 2.0TDI diesel engines produced by Volkswagen Group, including 2009-2015 Jetta, Beatles, Golf and Audi A3, and 2014-15 Passat were all sold in North America. According to regulations, the maximum fine for violating the Clean Air Act is $37500 per car, while Volkswagen's involvement of 482000 vehicles in the United States means a fine of up to $18 billion.

On September 23rd, Volkswagen Group CEO Martin Winterkorn will officially resign as CEO, instantly wiping out 1/3 of Volkswagen's market value. Following the accident in the US market, more than 10 countries, including Japan, Mexico, Canada, Italy, India, France, Britain, South Korea, Norway and Australia, investigated the emissions of Volkswagen's models. On September 24, Volkswagen Group in China's Shanghai Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen issued a statement on the same day that the emission gate had nothing to do with the Chinese market.

On September 28th, Volkswagen announced that the "Emission Gate" involves a total of about 11 million vehicles worldwide, including 5 million under the Volkswagen brand, 2.1 million by Audi, 1.2 million by Skoda, 700000 by Seattle and 1.8 million by Volkswagen light commercial vehicles, all of which are equipped with EA189 diesel engines made by Volkswagen.

Volkswagen (China) sales Co., Ltd. confirmed that there are a total of 1950 imported Volkswagen vehicles equipped with EA189 diesel engines (2.0TDI) in the Chinese market, including 1946 imported Tiguan and 4 imported Passat (B6). The above models will be solved by updating the software for EA189 diesel engines. In terms of quantity, the diesel vehicles imported by Volkswagen into China are a drop in the bucket compared with about 11 million problem vehicles in the world.

Of course, Volkswagen is having a hard time in overseas markets, not only by investigations into Volkswagen diesel vehicles in more than a dozen countries, including Germany, Britain, South Korea, India and South Korea, but also by tens of thousands of Volkswagen owners. So far, Volkswagen has lost more than 32 billion euros (231 billion yuan) on car modifications, fines and legal fees. However, the biggest impact of the "diesel emission door" incident on Volkswagen does not stop there. In addition to huge compensation and legal proceedings, the collapse of consumer trust in Volkswagen, the sharp decline of Volkswagen in the capital market, and the successive dismissal of senior management of the group have dealt a heavy blow to the group, and Volkswagen has also paid a heavy price for the "diesel emission door" incident.

It is worth mentioning that Volkswagen is not "alone"! After the Volkswagen "diesel door" incident, a new test by the German Association of Automobile drivers (Adac) shows that diesel vehicles from more automakers such as Renault, Nissan, Hyundai, Citroen, Fiat, Volvo, Ford, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Peugeot also have excessive emissions. Earlier, Mercedes-Benz South Korea was fined 77.6 billion won by South Korean regulators for artificially tampering with diesel vehicle emission data. In February, the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) imposed new fines on Mercedes-Benz's South Korean subsidiary and its German parent company, alleging that Mercedes-Benz still used false and deceptive advertisements to mislead consumers after the diesel incident.

There is a view that the "diesel door" incident can be seen as an initial sign that governments are beginning to resolve to promote new energy models such as batteries and hydrogen energy, while BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen have all begun to vigorously promote electric vehicles. It is also largely a response to the stimulation of diesel doors, although to some extent this means higher costs, but investing in the future is better than investing in technologies of the past.

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