Posted on 03/31/2021 11:59:49 AM PDT by Red Badger
Volkswagen of America issued false statements this week saying it would change its brand name to "Voltswagen," as a way to stress its commitment to electric vehicles, only to reverse course Tuesday and admit that the supposed name change was just a joke.
Mark Gillies, a company spokesman, confirmed Tuesday that the statement had been a pre-April Fool's Day joke, after having insisted Monday that the release was legitimate and the name change accurate.
The company's false statement was distributed again Tuesday, saying the brand name change reflected VW's switch to more battery-electric vehicles.
Volkswagen's intentionally fake news release, highly unusual for a major public company, coincides with its efforts to repair its image as it tries to recover from a 2015 scandal in which it cheated on government emissions tests and allowed diesel-powered vehicles to illegally pollute the air.
In that scandal, Volkswagen admitted that about 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide were fitted with the deceptive software, which reduced nitrogen oxide emissions when the cars were placed on a test machine but allowed higher emissions and improved engine performance during normal driving.
The scandal cost Volkswagen $35 billion (30 billion euros) in fines and civil settlements and led to the recall of millions of vehicles.
The company's fake news release, leaked on Monday and then repeated in a mass e-mail to reporters on Tuesday, resulted in articles about the name change in multiple media outlets, including The Associated Press.
I prefer “Over-complex over-engineered gold-plated fall apart junk” myself. But that doesn’t have a jaunty jingle to it.
Ever since they came up with that way to fake out the tests I’ve become a fan. They have guts and fight the system.
Before that I hated Volkswagen.
Do not joke with the media. They are leftist, and as such, have absolutely no sense of humor.
When are they going start using electric airliners?
Buy a used one and you will change your opinion again. Total money pit, without the holier-tyhan-thou factor of owning a Rover or a BMW.
I thought it was obvious they were joking. Who didn’t get it?
Biden
Me too. My first car was a 1975 VW Scirocco. It was a fin little car to drive.
It had a four speed which I didn’t know how to drive when I bought it when I was 17.
That was some really good free advertising.
I heard it reported as fact on whatever network does the radio news on the show I was listening to. I just chuckled.
This is why Germans don’t do humor.
“Buy a used one and you will change your opinion again.”
Like they say, “Buy a used car and you are buying someone else’s problems”
Buy new or Uber it.
I thought and still think it is clever. Tag their electric car lineup as “Voltswagens from Volkswagen”
It gave their stock a bump yesterday. That’s fraud.
My first car had three on the tree. In my generation, most of us had to learn how to drive a clutch once we couldn’t drive our parents’ car. :)
My grandmother taught me when I was 12 with my grandfather’s ‘54 Ford Pickup.
Timing...
Is it midnight already in Germany?
No.
Someone messed up.
Thirty days has September, April...
C’mon, man!
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