Energy

Scandal-Plagued VW Faced Financial Ruin In 2015 — Now It’s Top Automaker In 2016

(FotograFFF / Shutterstock.com)

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Chris White Tech Reporter
Font Size:

Volkswagen hemorrhaged several billion dollars in 2015 thanks to last year’s fuel emissions scandal, which was apparently just a speed bump, as the German car company is now the top-selling automaker in the market.

The company said it lost $6.2 billion in 2015 as a result of the fuel emissions cheating scandal it became mired in during the latter part of the year. To put that into perspective: VW lost more money in 2015 then it made in profit ($2.8 billion) during 2014.

Yet somehow, the much-maligned company is now sitting atop the car market, beating out competitors such as Toyota and General Motors.

VW outsold its closest competitors — Toyota and General Motors — by hundreds of thousands of units.

The German carmaker pushed out 2.51 million vehicles, despite facing the specter of departing with tens of billions of dollars through litigation connected to its fossil fuel emission cheating scandal in 2015.

Toyota, for its part, saw its sales dip below 2.3 percent from January to April, resulting in the selling only 2.46 million cars. GM came in a distant third place, and experienced a 2.5 percent slide in sells, with only 2.36 million vehicles sold so far this quarter. GM blamed poor sales in Latin America and China for its trouble.

Analysts speculated in 2015 that VW’s sells would be largely unaffected, because many of the vehicles the company sells in China are not diesel powered, thus allowing the carmaker to avoid any repercussions in the country. Only 1,000 of the three million vehicles VW sells in China were diesel powered.

Still, everything is not flowers and roses for VW.

The company was forced to ratchet up the amount of money it set aside to handle the scandal, to $18.2 billion, and that amount could increase as more fines and lawsuits come down the pike. VW previously stashed $7.6 billion away to atone for the scandal.

VW acknowledged in September installing “defeat devices” in hundreds of thousands of diesel-powered vehicle, including in many high-selling models such as the Beetle and Porsche Cayenne.

The company warned sales for its cars could tumble 5 percent this year, from $239 billion in 2015.

VW hired highly touted consulting firm McKinsey & Co. to handle its push to remake its image following the scandal, people close to the situation told reporters on Wednesday. They remained unnamed due to the sensitive nature of the talks.

The company made the decision after recognizing it struggled to handle the public relations side of the debacle. Volkswagen.

Follow Chris on Facebook and Twitter

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel