The Volkswagen diesel emission scandal is probably the biggest scandal in the automobile industry that we’ve seen in recent times. It is also rather ironic as it just seems to justify the push towards more “green” vehicles, like electric cars or hybrids even, and that seems to be the new direction that Volkswagen will be heading down.
According to a recent press release (via Engadget), the carmaker has announced what they are calling the “Pact for the Future” in which Volkswagen will be making a huge commitment to build more electric cars and self-driving cars in an effort to rejuvenate its core brand. Basically the company is taking this scandal as an opportunity to clean themselves up, so to speak.
However while this might be good news for the environment and automobile industry, it isn’t such good news for Volkswagen’s staff because as part of their restructuring and renewed focus, Volkswagen has also announced that they will be cutting about 30,000 jobs in the process.
It has been estimated that these job cuts are expected to save the company about $3.92 billion a year. Volkswagen chief executive Matthias Mueller said, “The VW brand needs a real shake-up and that is exactly what the future pact has turned out to be.” Will Volkswagen be able to turn themselves around with this new strategy? We guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
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