Volkswagen vows to ‘Redefine’ Tarnished Brand

Volkswagen vows to 'Redefine' Tarnished Brand

 Volkswagen assistant general management conveyed their solidarity to car dealers hit hard by the German auto giant's emissions-testing scandal.

Most of it to dealers' anxiety were however, went unsaid. Herbert Diess, head of the Volkswagen consumer firm, interacted with hundreds of dealers for 90 minutes at an annual conference in Las Vegas last Saturday. His message was clear: "Volkswagen aims to be a mass-market player in the U.S. market, willing to chase volume at the expense of exclusivity." Diess assured to redefine the tarnished image of the automotive firm and relaunch the "brand".

Diess said that their brand will not fastrack essential products so that dealers can recover from their slumping sales in the last half of the year. A part of the meet-up was also attended over to their new release, an All track wagon, an all-wheel drive vehicle due for delivery later this year to compete with Subaru.

Production targets for the All track, speculated to be built in Mexico have been doubled.Mr. Diess said in an interview he couldn't specify about efforts regarding the legal, financial and commercial ramifications of a scandal related to years of cheating on diesel-emission tests in the U.S. The emissions scheme led to a management reshuffle on several continents and is likely to cost the company billions of dollars to repair.

Volkswagen is in discussions with U.S. authorities and other regulators about resolving the problem.Sales have plunged down in the after-math of the scandal, by sloping down more than 12% in the first three months of 2016 compared with the first quarter of 2015.Many dealers have expressed frustration with the top-body in Wolfsburg, Germany, where Volkswagen is based.In addition to facing fines, the company needs to fix their cars with higher diesel emissions than legally allowed and figure out a way to gain approval to start selling big volumes of diesel cars again.