bubbagumpshrimp
Veteran Member
The bulk of the other countries go by the Euro 'x' (whatever the exact standard name is)...for which a "fix" was already agreed to (though it has been halted). That and lets be honest...most of the politicians and regulators in those countries just don't give a $h1t about this. Couple to that fact these countries seem to have weak consumer protection laws...VW just doesn't have much to worry about there.Somewhat depends on the exposure in the rest of the world. The 500k in the US is a small fraction of the 11M worldwide. Unless the rest are looking more like a meh settlement, until the worldwide cost is known, debt is going to be very expensive, though not as bad as the bridge loan they have now.
For the purposes of booking losses for CY 15 In Euro 'x' countries...I would imagine that the "fix" cost and projected penalties/fines is what they'll use for those countries.
While they'll still have some unresolved issues (i.e. South Korea)...countries like that are just not going to result in a huge burden...at least not billions of dollars worth. They can throw out a WAG (Wild A55 Guess) and move on.
For them to wrap up and post a 2015 loss number that's even in the ballpark...they have to resolve the U.S. Their exposure could be anywhere from (hypothetical) $5B to $50B. Unless they come up with some kind of agreement with U.S. regulators in the next ~16 days...there's just no way that they could post even a WAG for a total loss the end of April.
So yes...they "only" sold 600,000 cars in the U.S...and percentage wise...it's a small percentage of total TDI sales...but it's our legal system (possible fines, damages to consumers, etc.) that makes them so significant.
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