Hidden in VW’s announcement yesterday that it was “setting aside” nearly $9 billion to buy back – and destroy – about half a million diesel-powered cars convicted of “cheating” Uncle’s emissions tests was a statement by CEO Matthias Mueller that tells us how craven – and divorced from reality – car company CEOs are these days.
Mueller told reporters that VW will undergo a “wide-ranging transformation” that will end up with the company “focusing more” on “digital services” and “zero emissions” vehicles; that it would be sinking money into “mobility services” such as ride-sharing apps and car-sharing.
Because it looks like selling cars – economically and functionally viable cars – isn’t working much for them.
Well, it was.
But not anymore.
Because Uncle.
Instead of $22k TDI Jettas that can go 50-plus miles on a gallon of fuel, VW’s Matthias wants to “focus” on Germanic Teslas like the electric Golf – which costs almost $30,000 and goes maybe 70 miles on a full charge. VW can’t send me an eGolf to review because the thing can’t make it here in a single trip, in a single day.
Not unless it is carried here on a flatbed.
But the eGolf is “zero emissions” and that makes it politically appealing to politically correct CEOs like Mueller, whose “customer” is Uncle… not us.
If this weren’t the case, VW would be defending it’s excellent – and hugely popular – TDI-powered cars instead of crushing them. And not “focusing” on electrified idiocies such as the eGolf.
Mueller told reporters VW intends to “make electric cars one of (its) hallmarks” by 2020, by which time – less than four years from now – it plans to introduce 20 new electrified idiocies, notwithstanding the eGolf’s great success (not) and notwithstanding utterly absent market demand for cars that struggle to go anywhere and which need a very long umbilical cord to get there. And which also cost Ludicrous Sums of money and even then still can’t be sold at a profit without open-ended “help” from Uncle.
Reading between the lines – you can almost see the type – Matthias intends to ditch diesels (politically incorrect) in favor of … electric cars.
