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I think the Germans did learn from their mistakes. I didn't run into a single German in the jungle in '69'.
****
hfm: Please see my remarks in 'red':
Originally Posted by hfm
Eduardo, you've given considerable thought to the VW official and the September 3, 2015 meeting. Whether or not the official was a whistleblower and, whether or not the executives participating in the September 3, 2015 meeting had legal counsel or, consulted with or coordinated with VW supervisory board all deals with how this debacle was handled internally.
Yes, I have. And yes we are talking how this was handled initially by VW re: their admission of wrong doing in that early time frame - Aug. 21st & Sept. 3rd.
It is materially and factually inconsistant that the VW supervisory board didn't know what was going on by September 3, 2015 yet US VW executives some how did know and were able to admit the existence of a default device when questioned by the EPA. You can be reasonably sure anything US VW executives knew, VW supervisory knew as well.
Not necessarily. VW of America CEO Michael Horn admitted under oath that he learn of the 'defeat devices' only days before the Sept 3rd Meeting.
We don't yet know what Michael Horn communicated back to his boss after he found out, which I presumed at that time was CEO Martin Winterkorn. And we don't know what Winterkorn reported in that time frame to the Supervisory Board, which did not have a meeting going at in that particular time frame (last days of August/First days of September).
Otherwise, the only factually sensible reason for that isolated knowledge is that US VW knew because the source of the defeat software originated here and that does not make sense that the left hand controlled the right hand, head and rest of the body.
No chance of that. The defeat software was incorporated into a device that was apparently manufactured by Robert Bosch at the request, and under the specifications established, by the VW Group. It was found on the so-far identified diesel engines in all VW markets - the US and ROW. Without a doubt the defeat software originated in the Fatherland and not in Herndon, VA, Auburn Hills, MI or Chattanooga, TN!
What matters factually took place before. That someone decided to install and implement the software to defeat testing and was able to do this across multiple platforms, vehicles and brands well before 2015. Once that happened the questions become who knew, why wasn't the problem fixed at a supervisory level, how could management at the CEO level at each brand not know, how could the supervisory board not know and, once they did know, why wasn't a defensive strategy developed the moment they did know?
We need to understand the VW Group structure:
The problem here likely rests with the supervisory board who probably knew of the issue in 2014 and failed to advise executives, shareholders and, develop a defensive strategy in advance of public disclosure.
Not necessarily. VW claims that this whole operation was the work of some rogue engineers that didn't have the approval or consent of upper management. If upper management didn't know, you can't blame the Supervisory Board for also not knowing!
If they truly did not know, then, how did this one VW US official know and how did the executives from VW US know of the existence of the default device so as to be able to admit to its existence to the EPA?
We still don't know the identity of this VW official at the Pacific Grove CA event on Aug 21st. Although both EPA & CARP officials were present, this was not their conference. It was a University of California at Davis event, so quite an informal gathering. I am assuming that individual is/was an employee of VW of America. But it could also have been a representative of VW AG, e.g. an engineer, who attended this meeting from Germany. Either way, this person was privy to the information which Michael Horn, CEO of VW of America claims he didn't know as of that date - Aug. 21st, 2015. So perhaps the information re: defeat devices was known only to an elite circle of engineers who didn't share that information with the business 'suits' within their own organization. What ultimately drove this individual to reveal this incriminating information first to the EPA & CARB before he informed his own management, whether in Wolfsburg or Herndon, is what remains a puzzle to me!
Remember that what I am trying to do here is make sense of what VW is telling us...not whether I think even now VW is being dishonest with what they are telling us, the regulators...and even the US Congress under oath! So please play along...even if you find their stories simply implausible!
Dan (thinks finger pointing is far removed from solution finding)
Eduardo (thinks this is not finger pointing but investigating reporting in the spirit of Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein...and hopefully not Dan Rather )
***
Robert Bosch Role
Here is another interesting perspective to the story that I think is worth
focusing our attention, because it truly reveals the depth of the problem
faced not only by VW, but by other significant players in the automotive
industry of Germany:
Originally Posted by JimV8
Bosche engineers build the software for VW but instructed that it was not for production purposes.
Originally Posted by Nicole
There were rumors in the German press that supplier BOSCH had warned VW that they were using illegal software, but this was brushed off by whoever was the contact there.
Originally Posted by Little Green
I keep hearing this and have even seen the press releases. If Bosch did in fact make the original software and said don't use this for production, did they produce 11 million "test" ECM's or did vw alter each of the supplied parts? Bosch can't sit there and say "well yeah we made 11M of them but it was for testing". This doesn't lie just at VW's feet. No question Bosch will get seriously sucked into this. If it does it will have tremendous affects on the aftermarket business. We stock over 6K different part numbers from Bosch in our inventory. They supply to every major auto manufacturer in the world.
It makes littles sense to me that off-topic forum is not accessible without membership but, that is what it is.
Thank you for posting the WSJ link with the video. Questions that weren't asked were - from whom did Mr. Horn learn of the existence of the defeat devices? If it was it from VAG, when did they know of the existence? And, how did VAG learn of their existence? Rogue engineers. Elite circle of engineers. A group of engineers did this for what reason if they weren't expressly or impliedly told to do so by their superiors?
The thing you posted about the VW official at the Pacific Grove event is interesting in that his knowledge of the existence of the defeat device existed prior to what Mr. Horn indicates he knew. Assuming Mr. Horn is telling the truth, the question remains, was this official telling EPA this information before telling VAG or, did VAG already know but not disclose? I agree and, you're correct, this is a key fact and question needed to assess culpability.
It makes littles sense to me that off-topic forum is not accessible without membership but,
that is what it is.
I started the thread at this 991 gt3 forum the mysterious resignation of Ferdinand Piëch as
chairman of the VW Group's Supervisory Board back on 5/07/2015.
The moderators chose to moved it to 'Off Topic', which was unfortunate. Not so much because it
requires a paid membership to Rennlist - you should be doing that in any case, as sccchiii pointed
out above, to insure this forum stays profitable & available to us in the internet! No, it's unfortunate
because the 'Off-Topic' forum is so seldom visited by our 'regular' contributors & readers. From every
perspective that I can think of, 'Dieselgate' & Ferdinand Piëch's role in it (big or small), is anything
but 'Off-Topic'! Just a cursory glance at today's business & political headlines in the 'press' will amply
demonstrate its relevancy. In fact, the long term survival of Porsche as we know it today, and the
reason for this forum to exist at all, is in some jeopardy. And I think that as this story develops,
more Rennlisters will come to understand the serious nature of the problem!
I have asked respectfully asked the moderators of this website (John Petridis & Bob Rouleau) to
restore my Piëch thread back to this forum where it will have more visibility & create an opportunity
for enlightened discussion among our members. That hasn't happened yet, but I hope the request is
reconsidered by them.
In the meantime, I try to keep the information on this subject current on this other thread which is
a 'sticky' at the top of the forum:
Thank you for posting the WSJ link with the video. Questions that weren't asked were -
from whom did Mr. Horn learn of the existence of the defeat devices? If it was it from
VAG, when did they know of the existence? And, how did VAG learn of their existence?
Rogue engineers. Elite circle of engineers. A group of engineers did this for what reason
if they weren't expressly or impliedly told to do so by their superiors?
Correct. So far we have not seen enough investigative reporting on this very topic by either
the 'main street' or the 'automotive' press! So I am trying to correct that!
****
Originally Posted by hfm
The thing you posted about the VW official at the Pacific Grove event is interesting in that his
knowledge of the existence of the defeat device existed prior to what Mr. Horn indicates he
knew. Assuming Mr. Horn is telling the truth, the question remains, was this official telling
EPA this information before telling VAG or, did VAG already know but not disclose? I agree
and, you're correct, this is a key fact and question needed to assess culpability.
I am going to write more about this Pacific Grove conference in the coming days. I have done
some further research & discovered that it took place in 'Asilomar', which is just a few miles
north of my Carmel Point home on the Pacific Coast here in Monterey County.
So that is 'ground zero' of the devastating revelations that started the 'implosion' of the VW
Group on that fateful day - August 21st of 2015! From that moment forward, which led
directly to the Sept 3rd VW/EPA/CARB meeting & the EPA's public accusations on Sept 18th,
the die was cast. From that date forward, you can document the gradual destruction of the
VW Group as we know it, starting with the 'evaporation' of several billion euros of the VW’s
market capitalization in a few short weeks! When the final chapter of 'Dieselgate' is written,
and the cost of ruined lives & fortunes tallied, history will record what the spark that started
the destructive 'wrecking ball' was let loose at this location, albeit if the 'deceit' was conceived
& set into motion years before in far-away Germany.
And it will always be remembered as a sad day for the fortune of VW, its customers, its workers,
its world-wide dealer network, it's long list of suppliers and of course, its share-holders. Especially
hard hit will be the wealth & influence of the Porsche/Piëch family...although I think Ferdinand
Piëch wisely bailed out back in April & possibly monetized all of his VW shares. Remember, never
bet against Ferdinand Piëch. That is a lesson I have learned from following this fascinating person,
the most gifted of all descendants of Ferdinand Porsche, since I was first exposed to Porsche in the
early 1970's! He is not finished yet!
So what was started at 'Asilomar', a place I can walk to from my home, is still reverberating in
Wolfsburg, Zuffenhausen, Ingolstadt & Zell-am-See today...and it will continue for much longer
than most of you anticipate!
For the sake of making it easy on our readers, let me post here the contents of Bob Lutz 'opinion'
from his regular column on Road & Track:
"Ferdinand Piëch, the immensely powerful former chief of Volkswagen's supervisory board,
is more than likely the root cause of the VW diesel-emissions scandal. Whether he specifically
asked for, tacitly approved, or was even aware of the company's use of software to deliberately
fudge EPA emissions testing is immaterial.
I sat next to him at an industry dinner in the Nineties, just after the fourth-generation Golf had
debuted at the Frankfurt show. I told him, "I'd like to congratulate you on the new Golf. First of
all, it's a nice-looking car, but God, those body fits!"
"Yeah. I wish we could get close to that at Chrysler."
"I'll give you the recipe. I called all the body engineers, stamping people, manufacturing, and
executives into my conference room. And I said, 'I am tired of all these lousy body fits. You
have six weeks to achieve world-class body fits. I have all your names. If we do not have
good body fits in six weeks, I will replace all of you. Thank you for your time today.' "
"That's how you did it?"
"Yes. And it worked."
That's the way he ran everything. It's what I call a reign of terror and a culture where performance
was driven by fear and intimidation. He just says, "You will sell diesels in the U.S., and you will not
fail. Do it, or I'll find somebody who will." The guy was absolutely brutal.
I imagine that at some point, the VW engineering team said to Piëch, "We don't know how to pass
the emissions test with the hardware we have." The reply, in that culture, most likely was, "You will
pass! I demand it! Or I'll find someone who can do it!"
In these situations, your choice was immediate dismissal or find a way to pass the test and pay the
consequences later. Human nature being what it is—if it's lose your job today for sure or lose your
job maybe a year from now, we always pick maybe a year from now.
That management style gets short-term results, but it's a culture that's extremely dangerous. Look
at dictators. Dictators invariably wind up destroying the very countries they thought their omniscience
and omnipotence would make great. It's fast and it's efficient, but at huge risk.
This diesel fiasco is immeasurable in terms of damages—so much worse than Toyota acceleration,
Ford Firestone tires, or GM ignition switches. In all those cases, tragically, people died, but it wasn't
premeditated. You settle with the victims' families, pay the fine, put in the new parts, and for $1.5
billion, it can all be contained. But this Volkswagen mess is like the disaster that keeps on giving.
To make the cars legal in the U.S., VW will need to program them with the software that passes the
test, in which case, performance is down and fuel consumption is up, and every VW TDI owner is part
of a class-action suit against Volkswagen. To retrofit a urea system is basically a nonstarter, as it would
require far too much change.
There is no easy fix. But you can probably rely on the German government to do what is necessary to
pull Volkswagen out of this crisis. In terms of marketing cars in the U.S., Volkswagen will need a radically
new array of products that are much closer to mainstream American tastes than what it has. The whole
Clean Diesel campaign, as the foundation of the VW brand, cannot be resurrected. It's history.
*
Bob Lutz has been The Man at several car companies, so your problems are cake. Bring 'em on.
*
MY comment: We really don't know enough of Piëch role in 'Dieselgate' to make this kind of accusation.
This is a cheap shot by someone that should know better than be this reckless with his words. And he
should be reprimanded for making this dramatic conjecture from rather flimsy evidence - an innocuous
dinner conversation with Ferdinand Piëch back when the latter was in active management at the VW
Group - way before he became the Chairman of the Supervisory Board and quite a distance from what
the diesel engineers were up to in recent years! I hope this libelous 'piece of cake' smacks him in the face
at some future point in time!
*
This is not the first attempt to tar the image of Ferdinand Piëch and assign blame directly to him
in the press in recent weeks!
*
And it is going to get worse. The liberal press thinks of the 'Conservative Right' as modern day '*****'.
But in their bias, they forget that they latter's actual name was 'Nationalist Socialists' & they considered
themselves back then progressive Socialists. Unfortunately for Volkswagen, 'Dieselgate' affords the left
a fat, juicy target - a story of pollution, corporate cheating & of majority shareholders that indeed had
a past history with the '*****'. And the 'drive-by' will find it impossible to resist making hay of these
'facts' because they combine all the elements the Left love to demonize today - 'bad actors' polluting
our environment, corporate malfeasance, the undeserving 1% super-rich and a connection to the only
evil person they acknowledge has ever existed - Adolph Hitler. And what do you know? He was Austrian
too! Picture perfect for a docudrama on MSNBC hosted by John Harwood!
Dan (concedes the subject is interesting enough to discuss)
Saludos,
Eduardo (thank you for that concession and may your mind explore other interesting aspects of this
extraordinary story which is unraveling right before our eyes as we live through its early history!)
And it is going to get worse. The liberal press thinks of the 'Conservative Right' as modern day '*****'.
But in their bias, they forget that they latter's actual name was 'Nationalist Socialists' & they considered
themselves back then progressive Socialists. Unfortunately for Volkswagen, 'Dieselgate' affords the left
a fat, juicy target - a story of pollution, corporate cheating & of majority shareholders that indeed had
a past history with the '*****'. And the 'drive-by' will find it impossible to resist making hay of these
'facts' because they combine all the elements the Left love to demonize today - 'bad actors' polluting
our environment, corporate malfeasance, the undeserving 1% super-rich and a connection to the only
evil person they acknowledge has ever existed - Adolph Hitler. And what do you know? He was Austrian
too! Picture perfect for a docudrama on MSNBC hosted by John Harwood!
It's always easier if we can demonize or caricaturize someone else, and people on all sides of the political spectrum repeatedly do it as, and I say this with the greatest respect for you Eduardo, you've done in the quote above. But I honestly don't think this is a "liberal press" issue. Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, not exactly bastions of liberalism, have been hammering away at VW too.
No, I believe the fallout from the scandal is grounded in something much more basic; a well known and trusted brand misrepresented it's product to their customers and then continued to lie about it when questioned. Period. Whether the additional emissions put out by VW's "clean diesels" is significant in the grand scheme of things or not, is entirely beside the point. In many cases VW's customers bought these cars because they believed the advertising that said they were environmentally friendly. My wife was one of them. This scandal didn't have to be ginned up by either the Right or the Left. It happened. People were cheated. And VW got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
As to the comments by Bob Lutz, I couldn't agree with you more. In addition to his unsubstantiated evaluation of F. Piech, his brushing aside of the GM and Firestone fiascos is ridiculous. It may be that they didn't start out to deliberately make defective products, but they certainly knowingly tried to hide problems after they were discovered, and their actions resulted in more people getting killed. The VW issue doesn't rise to that level of malfeasance, IMHO.
Last edited by Mike in CA; 11-05-2015 at 09:04 PM.
There is a very interesting set of articles in today's Financial Times that analyses the corporate structure of VW and the role of that structure in the problems VW is facing. The absence of outside, independent directors on the supervisory board, and the structure whereby the board is bypassed on major decisions until they are made by Piech/ Winterkorn and the unions makes interesting reading. Increasing numbers of corporate analysts are calling for major changes in the make-up of VW's corporate structure, diluting not only the Porsche family's control, but also Lower Saxony and the workers representatives. It may well require the intervention of the Government to restructure the governance. Very interesting read.
I do find the demonization of the 'canary' intriguing. Surely it is VW itself and its culture that bears the blame. It is unlikely anyone in Carmel engineered the deceit.
So Eduardo isn't behind all this?.. Damn, I was sure we were going to have some serious PTS intrigue emerge from this mess. Somebody, is hiding information regarding PTS "Brilliant metallic yolk yellow" for sure
And it is going to get worse. The liberal press thinks of the 'Conservative Right' as modern day '*****'.
But in their bias, they forget that they latter's actual name was 'Nationalist Socialists' & they considered
themselves back then progressive Socialists. Unfortunately for Volkswagen, 'Dieselgate' affords the left
a fat, juicy target - a story of pollution, corporate cheating & of majority shareholders that indeed had
a past history with the '*****'. And the 'drive-by' will find it impossible to resist making hay of these
'facts' because they combine all the elements the Left love to demonize today - 'bad actors' polluting
our environment, corporate malfeasance, the undeserving 1% super-rich and a connection to the only
evil person they acknowledge has ever existed - Adolph Hitler. And what do you know? He was Austrian
too! Picture perfect for a docudrama on MSNBC hosted by John Harwood!
It's always easier if we can demonize or caricaturize someone else, and people on all sides of the political spectrum
repeatedly do it as, and I say this with the greatest respect for you Eduardo, you've done in the quote above. But I
honestly don't think this is a "liberal press" issue. Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, not exactly bastions of
liberalism, have been hammering away at VW too.
Mike: You have apparently failed to understand the reason for my choice of words in the paragraph you quoted from
my post. I am extremely careful with the words I choose to use on each & every post I write in Rennlist, whether I
am discussing PTS...or the Third Reich. And I hope you will understand in due time that I am not myself demonizing
or caricaturing anyone in the Porsche or Piëch families. I am using those words to describe what some in the press
will try to do to them in the context of 'Dieselgate'! Then I immediately proceeded to list for the reader two articles
that make or prove my point: 'From the Third Reich to Emissions Scandal' screams the BBC headline! And Slate starts
off with this 'unbiased' description of what you are about to read: 'Volkswagen's Villains...the corrosive corporate
culture & dynasty that shaped it'! Why, that saves you time right there! No need to read any further. Verdict is 'in'!
As an aside, I do not confuse the usual conservative voices in the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal with its
cadre of reporters trained alongside every other student at America's liberal schools of journalism. I often see WSJ
articles that rival the selective ignorance & deliberate bias of The New York Times!
In their own words...
“Are reporters biased? There is no doubt that — I’ve worked at the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and
worked here at Politico. If I had to guess, if you put all of the reporters that I’ve ever worked with on truth serum,
most of them vote Democratic.”
— Politico's Jim VandeHei during C-SPAN's coverage of the GOP primaries, March 13, 2012.
"The mainstream press is liberal....Since the civil rights and women's movements, the culture wars and Watergate,
the press corps at such institutions as the Washington Post, ABC-NBC-CBS News, the NYT, the Wall Street Journal,
Time, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, etc. is composed in large part of 'new' or 'creative' class
members of the liberal elite — well-educated men and women who tend to favor abortion rights, women's rights,
civil rights, and gay rights. In the main, they find such figures as Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Pat Robertson,
or Jerry Falwell beneath contempt....If reporters were the only ones allowed to vote, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis,
Al Gore, and John Kerry would have won the White House by landslide margins."
— Longtime Washington Post political reporter Thomas Edsall in an October 8, 2009 essay for the Columbia Journalism
Review, 'Journalism Should Own Its Liberalism.'
Mike: You have apparently failed to understand the reason for my choice of words in the paragraph you quoted from
my post. I am extremely careful with the words I choose to use on each & every post I write in Rennlist, whether I
am discussing PTS...or the Third Reich. And I hope you will understand in due time that I am not myself demonizing
or caricaturing anyone in the Porsche or Piëch families. I am using those words to describe what some in the press
will try to do to them in the context of 'Dieselgate'! Then I immediately proceeded to list for the reader two articles
that make or prove my point: 'From the Third Reich to Emissions Scandal' screams the BBC headline! And Slate starts
off with this 'unbiased' description of what you are about to read: 'Volkswagen's Villains...the corrosive corporate
culture & dynasty that shaped it'! Why, that saves you time right there! No need to read any further. Verdict is 'in'!
As an aside, I do not confuse the usual conservative voices in the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal with its
cadre of reporters trained alongside every other student at America's liberal schools of journalism. I often see WSJ
articles that rival the selective ignorance & deliberate bias of The New York Times!
In their own words...
“Are reporters biased? There is no doubt that — I’ve worked at the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and
worked here at Politico. If I had to guess, if you put all of the reporters that I’ve ever worked with on truth serum,
most of them vote Democratic.”
— Politico's Jim VandeHei during C-SPAN's coverage of the GOP primaries, March 13, 2012.
"The mainstream press is liberal....Since the civil rights and women's movements, the culture wars and Watergate,
the press corps at such institutions as the Washington Post, ABC-NBC-CBS News, the NYT, the Wall Street Journal,
Time, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, etc. is composed in large part of 'new' or 'creative' class
members of the liberal elite — well-educated men and women who tend to favor abortion rights, women's rights,
civil rights, and gay rights. In the main, they find such figures as Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Pat Robertson,
or Jerry Falwell beneath contempt....If reporters were the only ones allowed to vote, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis,
Al Gore, and John Kerry would have won the White House by landslide margins."
— Longtime Washington Post political reporter Thomas Edsall in an October 8, 2009 essay for the Columbia Journalism
Review, 'Journalism Should Own Its Liberalism.'
Eduardo, it wouldn't be the first time I misunderstood something, and I may have again in this case, but it wasn't that I thought you were demonizing the Porsche or Piech families. I know that you weren't doing that, and I appreciate the care with which you write. It did seem, though, that you were complaining how the "liberal press" was demonizing VW's actions while at the same time you yourself were caricaturing and demonizing "liberals". That just struck me as ironic. My apologies if I have misinterpreted those comments.
In my humble opinion, what VW did doesn't require a right or left, liberal or conservative spin. It was simply wrong, based on the facts as we know them so far, and for that reason they deserve the scrutiny they are now getting as a consequence of, if nothing else, their gross hubris and stupidity. Personally, I have no wish to see the brand punished out of existence. Let them pay a reasonable price for their "sins", which by the way pale in comparison to any number of other corporate and political scandals for which little or no punishment was handed out, and then begin to move forward from this episode.
although I think Ferdinand Piëch wisely bailed out back in April & possibly monetized all of his VW shares.
If he sold VW shares at the peak before over $23B VW market capitalization loss, I'd question if he did this knowing what was about to take place. If that decision was based upon knowledge of the existence of defeat device as opposed to wisdom, it begs the question, was this an insider trade? I posted Lutz's opinion expecting the response you provided. You'll note, I did not call Lutz "mister" and I've stated elsewhere, I'll not buy GM, ever, so my thoughts on him and his are plain too. Lutz managed to cover up ignition deaths and bankrupt the company through 2009 such that we taxpayers had to pay for GMs bailout. And, because of that BK, injured and dependents of the deceased had their remedies limited. As for Mr. Piëch, I simply don't know enough about him or what he may or may not have done to form an opinion yet. The lawyer in me questions the timing of his departure. Granted, he probably wasn't expecting an ouster. But, it was rather convenient if he cashed out when he did, wasn't it?
Dan (holds Lutz in very low regard as you may have guessed but, doesn't give Mr. Piëch a pass either)
Eduardo, do you think Porsche SE has enough capital and shares to buy all
the remaining shares available to attempt another take over or a buy out to
free themselves from the VW umbrella?
No, I don't think they, as a family holding, have enough capital left to do that.
And if they did, it would not be prudent to throw 'good money after bad'.
And it's all rather pointless if the Lower State of Saxony, even with a less
potent version of the VW Law in place, can have veto power, especially
when allied to the labor representatives (votes) on the VW's Board.
As an interesting side note, VW reported US$ 1.83 Billion (1.67 B Euros)
in the third quarter of it's fiscal year accounting for the 6.7 Billion Euros
it initially set aside in September for the costs of the scandal. But that
loss was somewhat mitigated by this little reported fact:
'The cash reserves have been buttressed by
3 billion euros from the sale of shares in Suzuki.'
It turns out that VW owned almost 20% shares of Suzuki and was
forced to sell it recently (nothing to do with the current VW scandal).
So the shares of VW that Porsche SE bought directly from Suzuki recently,
which allowed them to raise the family's ownership to 52.3% of ordinary
shares of VW (from 50.7 %) and represents 32.4% of subscribed capital
in VW, was a totally separate affair negotiated way before the VW scandal
broke, although it was executed at about the same time by coincidence.
These shares became available when VW was compelled to sell its 19.9
% share of Suzuki and the latter was forced to sell its 1.5% shares of
the VW Group. At the time the Porsche SE purchase of Suzuki shares
was announced, it was spun as the family's increased commitment to
the VW Group. From this revelation, it looks to me like a pre-arranged
family purchase that perhaps was too late to undo after the scandal
story broke out.
And I predict this will be Porsche SE's last investment in VW Group shares
for a very long time. There will be losses at VW for the foreseeable future,
the stock has lost over 30% of its value and there is little chance of dividend
income. And when you throw the fuzzy ramifications of the VW Law into the
mix, it makes little sense to me that Porsche SE would want to invest further
in this business venture.
Originally Posted by FLAT6KING
BTW the news is under reporting the potential fine as 7 billion which is
nothing compared to the penalty per vehicle cost that was reported earlier
(looking for that figure).
The US $7+ billion figure in the press is the initial reserve the VW Group
set aside (actually 6.7 billion Euros) to cover the estimated cost of the 'hit'
under accounting rules. On Nov 3rd VW set aside a further 2 billion Euros
(US $2.2B) because 'overstated claims about the carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions
and, thus, fuel efficiency of 800,000 cars, including, it seems, some with petrol
engines.'
If the US EPA decides to fine VW for every diesel the agency declared, and VW
admitted, had the cheater device in the US, that penalty alone would cost them
in excess of US $18 billion. Estimates of the total cost to VW for the scandal range
from a low of US$30 billion to US$87Billion. The figures are simply staggering!
Eduardo, it wouldn't be the first time I misunderstood something, and I may
have again in this case, but it wasn't that I thought you were demonizing the
Porsche or Piech families. I know that you weren't doing that, and I appreciate
the care with which you write. It did seem, though, that you were complaining
how the "liberal press" was demonizing VW's actions while at the same time
you yourself were caricaturing and demonizing "liberals". That just struck me
as ironic. My apologies if I have misinterpreted those comments.
Now I see what you were trying to say. I was not trying to caricature &
demonizing 'liberals' per se. I was explaining how the Left will spin the
story in their publication venues - e.g. BBC & Slate - to include the tie-in
between the Porsche/Piëch family and the Third Reich. Less biased writers
will refrain from going to that extreme, although they will continue to
inform on the 'mistakes' that were made by executives & engineers at
the VW Group.
Originally Posted by Mike in CA
In my humble opinion, what VW did doesn't require a right or left, liberal
or conservative spin.
You are entitled to your opinion. Unfortunately, almost everybody else that
will write about this scandal on the press or internet will impart on it either
facts, feelings or opinions. These will be weaved into the storyline and used
to influence how the writer hopes its readers will react to what he/she has
communicated. That applies equally to me here at Rennlist, as well as to
the writers of the BBC & Slate.
Originally Posted by Mike in CA
It was simply wrong, based on the facts as we know them so far, and for
that reason they deserve the scrutiny they are now getting as a consequence
of, if nothing else, their gross hubris and stupidity. Personally, I have no wish
to see the brand punished out of existence. Let them pay a reasonable price
for their "sins", which by the way pale in comparison to any number of other
corporate and political scandals for which little or no punishment was handed
out, and then begin to move forward from this episode.
Yes, I remember hearing something similar taught to me by the nuns at
St. Margaret Mary in Irondequoit New York circa 1961. But I was trying
to make the point, which I think Mike (W8MM) captures brilliantly in one
sentence I have copied below, that there is more here than meets the eye:
I am trying to go beyond the surface of the base 'scandal' reports & delve
into those deeper 'murky' waters. To do that, I need for the readers to
consider the possibilities that there might be other agendas here at play.
So please bear with me as we explore this subject from various angles &
try to understand what might be really the other sub-plot in all of this.
And only then can our readers decide if this scandal can be 'contained' by
penitence & fines...or if the 'sins' are so abhorrent & egregious (as defined
by others - mostly in the political 'Left') that it requires VW to be sacrificed
& destroyed to the teach a valuable lesson to other would-be corporate
polluter-villains the world over. And the answer to that is...we don't yet
know how this is going to go down!
11-04-2015, 07:03 PM
)
My apologies if I have misinterpreted those comments.