Drivers Wanted!

Remember Volkswagen’s famous tagline for its advertisements, especially in the US — not the much mocked at ‘Das Auto’ — but the more direct and effective ‘Drivers Wanted’. Like the minimalist, yet very apt advertisements for Absolut, Volkswagen’s ads used to feature just a great shot of one of its cars, with the slogan ‘Drivers Wanted’ right below.

After the current emissions scandal rocking Volkswagen — widely being referred to as ‘Dieselgate’ — it now looks like the $250-billion conglomerate’s brand will take a big beating. Having accepted that its cars, which had the tainted two-litre diesel engine, was fitted with a cheating device software, Volkswagen might quite literally mean what it says in the ad — at least for its diesels in the US.

The cheat code, the whistleblower agency and the looming court battle… all these combine to almost make this look like a Hollywoodian deception drama. Maybe we can use some cinematic parallels to explain this scandal. In less than two weeks of the revelation rocking the automotive industry globally, the issue has ballooned ‘too fast and too furious’, and is now threatening to even affect diplomatic relations between the US and Germany.

Forget the billions of dollars in fines that threaten to bring Volkswagen to its knees financially; the big picture isn’t looking rosy at all with the possibility of diesel being called ‘dirty’ forever and with the looming prospect of a loss of confidence in Germany’s manufacturing integrity.

Fast and Furious

Now, there are two connections between the emissions scandal and the movie series. The first, of course, is that in both, the Fast and Furious franchise and the VW scandal, the central character is Diesel. Though Vin Diesel, who is XXX in the movie, might take offence and claim he is a ‘Petrolhead’.

The second connect is that the villainous gas involved in the scandal is NOx (Nitrogen Oxide), and in the movies, there is a lot of Nitrox used as a booster. Well, chemically they are not the same, but I guess you’ll allow us the leeway.

Independence Day

In the movie, Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum kick the rearsides of a galactic army of aliens who come to occupy Earth and have, predictably, engaged the US (they have a particular liking for Americans, apparently) in a war. The similarity to the scandal is the virus that eventually brought down the aliens. In Volkswagen’s case, the virus that needs to be removed is already there in the engine management system of the two-litre engine.

Volkswagen and its group companies are now staring at the prospect of recalling nearly 15 million vehicles and replacing the software, so that the cheat code can be erased. That is, an army of cars with embedded ‘virus-like’ software that have been designed to deliver on their promise of low emissions only when they are being tested, while they continue to spew up to 40 times as many pollutants while being driven on the road.

Mission Impossible

The fallout of the US Environmental Agency’s accusation and the company’s admission of complicity in the scam was a big shake-up in Volkswagen’s top management. At stake is billions of dollars in fines, possible class action lawsuits, and the added cost of recall and retrofitting emission devices in all the cars with the flawed two-litre TDI diesel engine.

But VW will now have to set up the equivalent of the Impossible Mission Force (IMF) to try and pull itself out of this sticky situation. It probably needs its own ‘Rabbit’s Foot’.

Martin Winterkorn, VW’s ex-CEO, who accepted responsibility and stepped down from his office last month, in an interview to Forbes magazine in 2013, had said that the company is on a mission to dominate the global auto industry. Unfortunately, this scam has just put a large dent on that target.

The company has a new CEO in place in Matthias Mueller and one wonders if the company’s board welcomed him with: “Your mission, if you choose to accept it is…”.