For Volkswagen, this could be more than a mere transitory bump in the road

摘要

Volkswagen, Europe's car giant, and long-seen as a picture of health, has been rocked at its very foundations by today's diesel exhaust emission scandal. Latest global car delivery figures reveal that the Volkswagen brand has skidded off course even before the likely setback triggered by the inevitable toxic fallout from the current crisis. Some, if not all cool headed market observers now believe that this is more than a mere bump in the road. The combined ill-effects of today's crisis, aside from the inevitable big financial bloodletting ahead, could conceivably develop into a fundamental change in Volkswagen's long-term trajectory.