Dieselgate and its Impacts on Consumers, Regulators and the Company

Abstract

The aim of this study is to discuss one of the world's biggest automobile manufacturing company's systematic emission test cheating and the impacts of this scandal—Dieselgate. The method comprises the assessment of American, British, and Turkish car forum comments, and analyses of relevant data collected from stock exchange and other statistical sources. It is found out that; on the average, around 40 percent of Volkswagen owners doesn’t believe that there will be any negative change in the company’s reputation in United Kingdom and Turkey. US data is somehow mixed. Members of one of two forums with a higher member profile by 28.95 percent believe VW brand will be damaged, and 14 percent find the matter a serious one. The members of the other forum where 24,571 messages are analyzed, only 554 messages are mentioning the terms fraud, ethics and moral. While stock exchanges market data backs the hypothesis that VW is no more a socially responsible group, and investors avoid it, sales data in United States do not absolutely support it. Further analyses on financial data, and comparison among more countries would be helpful.