It is, at this stage, possible to say, without fear of contradiction, that things look pretty bad for Volkswagen.
Some of the numbers that have been generated by this scandal are scarcely believable. Volkswagen’s shares have slumped 35pc in the two days since news broke that the company falsified emissions data in the US to make its diesel engines look cleaner than they actually are. This is a more precipitous fall in value than BP suffered in the days after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
About €25bn (£18bn) has been wiped off the market capitalisation of the German company, which has fessed up to the fact that 11m of its cars have probably been fitted with the pollution cheating software. VW has already set aside a cool €6.5bn to pay all the fines that are surely heading its way; some believe the figure could end up being fined closer to $18bn (£12bn). Read on and comment » | Ben Wright | Tuesday, September 22, 2015
