VW loses appeal over Aussie $125m ‘Dieselgate’ fine – Autocar – NZ Autocar

A few weeks after a comprehensive investigation resulted in the naming of its former CEO as a prime ‘Dieselgate’ suspect, an appeal made by Volkswagen to minimise an Australian fine over the saga has lost out.

In December 2019, Australia’s Federal Court increased an AU$75million fine that had already been handed to Volkswagen over the emissions cheating to AU$125million — the largest fine ever issued to any company charged with breaching Australian Consumer Law.

Reuters reports that Volkswagen had hoped in its appeal to get the fine figure down to its initial AU$75million amount, citing that it thought the initial amount was already fair punishment.

Although the fine sets a record in Australia, it pales in comparison to some of the payments Volkswagen has been forced to make around the world. Its total Dieselgate bill in America is over US$30billion. This figure includes hardware repairs on impacted diesel vehicles, its buy-back scheme, settlements, and more.

As reported late last month, Volkswagen is in the process of suing former CEO Martin Winterkorn and former Audi CEO Rupert Stadler over damages relating to Dieselgate; the pairing having been judged to have been the saga’s chief architects.

Volkswagen alleges that the pairing failed “to comprehensively and promptly clarify the circumstances behind the use of unlawful software functions” during initial investigations, following six years of its own investigations into the scandal’s moving parts.

This investigation reportedly involved 480 million documents, 1.6 million of which were directly tied to Dieselgate. On top of this, 1550 interviews with various witnesses and staff members were conducted.

The Dieselgate scandal resulted in a significant drop in sales of diesel Volkswagens worldwide — the brand kicking off a grand pivot to electrification as a result. In what was somewhat a blessing in disguise, it now finds itself ahead of most rival firms in terms of electrification progress.

Having rolled out its new ID.3 and ID.4 electric models in Europe, Volkswagen recently confirmed that it will double its electric car sales output in Europe by 2030. It expects that 70 per cent of its total sales by then will be electric.