With former VW CEO Müller out of the frame, reportedly because of the lack of progress in VW putting the Dieselgate scandal behind them, will new boss Herbert Diess do the honourable thing and push for UK compensation?
Diess landed a job at Volkswagen just months before the news of the emissions scandal broke, and it’s suggested he was involved in meetings where the issues were discussed prior to the world finding out about it all. Now, some three years on, he’s in charge of VW who remain defiant in refusing compensation to UK victims of the scandal.
Will Diess do the right thing?
It’s understood that the former BMW head of development was given the top job to speed up efforts for VW to put emissions cheating scandal behind them. Aside from the perhaps worrying irony that Diess’ former employers, BMW, are subject to raids and investigations over software irregularities that are thought to have occurred when he oversaw development there, Diess assumedly could not have been involved in the VW emissions scandal given he started the role just before the news of it broke.
But in the top job of the organisation that, according to some experts, is reportedly responsible for potentially thousands of premature deaths because of the additional NOX produced by the 11 million cards fitted with the so-called defeat devices worldwide, there’s no escaping the fact that it’s now his problem to sort.
The solution to getting past the emission scandal seems to have eluded VW, yet there remains the most obvious solution still on the table: compensation.
At the end of the day, how can anyone be expected to trust a company like VW if they refuse to accept that they have done anything wrong? They claim they have not broken any laws here in the UK, but this defence does not have a leg to stand on in our view.
Diess has reportedly argued against the banning of diesel vehicles in German cities that was given the go-ahead in a landmark ruling in the last few months, and he argued against retrofitting old diesel models to make them pollute less. With this in mind, and the fact that his former employer is under fire for software irregularities that have also reportedly led to emissions issues, we’re not confident that him stepping into the role will make any difference to the victims here in the UK and across Europe.
If VW truly wants to put the emissions scandal behind them, they must take the first vital and obvious step: pay what they owe in compensation to the victims. With the deadline to claim set for 26 October 2018, those who have yet to sign-up must do so as soon as possible.
Will Herbert Diess do the honourable thing and push for UK compensation?
We’re waiting…
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