“Paying Audi a visit”

The language used by German car manufacturer Audi and its parent company Volkswagen to handle its emissions fraud scandal speaks volumes about how their managers still underestimate the crisis, Carsten Knop writes in a commentary for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. At Audi’s annual press conference, CEO Rupert Stadler once again sought to talk as little as possible about the “diesel issue”. At the same time, prosecutors and the police were searching Audi’s headquarters “precisely due to this ‘issue’”, Knop explains. The investigations could shake Audi and Volkswagen at their core, but the executive boards disclaim any responsibility – “these are no good preconditions to achieve the transition to e-mobility,” Knop concludes. 

Read the commentary in German here.

For background on Germany’s automotive industry and e-mobility, see the CLEW dossier The Energiewende and German carmakers.