First, an update: researchers have now found all kinds of diesel cars exceeding emissions standards in “real world tests”, and VW wasn’t the dirtiest. Nobody is testing gas powered cars, while electric car advocates cleverly ignore the fact that their wundercars merely relocate the smog to much bigger smokestacks, usually located where the poor folks live. Around the world, politicians have been piling up the environmentalist points by decrying VW for crimes against something vague or other. Meanwhile, VW quietly admitted fault and promised to recall and repair something on the order of 10+ million cars.

No doubt by now VW is the laughing stock of the faculty lounges of business schools all over the country. Future MBAs will no doubt be educated in “how VW blew it”. SOP in big biz when they screw up is to deny, delay, and dump blame on everyone but themselves for their screwups. Heck, if real MBAs were running VW, they would have quickly peddled their only sizable American asset, the Chattanooga assembly plant. They then would midnight online file a pre-packaged bankruptcy of their American operations, leaving consumers and dealers scrambling for pennies on the dollar just to fulfill warranty obligations, never mind billions to fund the diesel recall. Slip the petty and billions in cash back to the homeland and sell the inventory of new cars that don’t meet Euro 6 to the 3rd world markets where they’re still debating Euro 4. Lean on the unions who’ll pressure the EC to let VW off with a stern warning and some tree planting and maybe some more solar cells, while turning loose the enthusiasts to spread the love for the brand and the right wing “Friends of Smog” to pressure the politicians. The american big three have the strategy down to an art, and if the EPA caught diesel pickups cheatin’ on emissions, they’d probably end up defunded and they’d do a recall to remove all the particulate filters and DEF tanks so patriotic owners could roll coal all over them ferrin’ hybred and ‘lectric cars!

But VW ain’t that kinda company.