[Tade0]

> They're still making way more money than the leaf on Diesels. Giving up on your cash cows is the most misguided business advice I've ever seen.

Was that cash cow worth a global scandal, billions lost in unsaleable inventory(hundred thousands) and fines($25bln) though? I mean - they lost roughly two years of net income here and had several executives land in prison.

Nissan on the other hand invested roughly 20% of that($4bln) to develop the LEAF.

Perhaps giving up on diesels before it was too late constituted sound advice after all?

[carlmr]

You're forgetting that Diesels are still making up a huge amount of VW group profit. Of course the scandal wasn't worth it, but it also wasn't necessary. Rather the decision to save on AdBlue was not worth it, not the Diesel technology itself.

I mean it's kind of like asking GM if it was worth it to not update their ignitions after they found out they were faulty and killed a few people (and got off easy because US company ;)). It's not a problem with ignition switch technology itself, but just this case of bad management decisions.

You can invest 4bn in EV technology, that would be smart, but those 4bn have to be made somewhere. In this case you can make this with Diesels and reinvest in EV. This is not some SV startup that will just waste its investors cash reserves until it goes broke.