VW continues to reel from the immense financial and political setback caused by the discovery of cheat software designed to falsify emission test results. In the meantime, customers have started doubting the performance of their vehicles before and after the VW diesel fix.
Contrary to general expectation and with some internal dissent in place, VW has looked inwards to investigate the incident. The company has appointed a committee comprising 5 supervisory board members to lead the effort. This significantly raises doubts as to the neutrality of the investigation, especially since the company has not been particularly forthcoming in responding to anxious customers.
Due to the company’s excellent history, especially in the European markets, there was an unexpected level of public sympathy with VW arising from a general relief that the company came clean with a public apology. Brand loyalists contributed their share through expressing favourable views on social media. Since then, VW has fallen (further) somewhat in the public eye, as customer anxiety built up in the time it took VW to put forward a solution.
On October 2, VW finally announced a website for its German customers to verify whether their vehicle has been affected or not. As to a solution, the company claims to have one but has failed to provide a response to the uppermost question in most customers’ minds which is whether the car’s performance will be affected or not. Speculatively, the illegal software will have to be replaced with an upgrade and some physical alterations may be required to negate the excess emissions.