Although U.S. sales of diesel-powered passenger vehicles is quite limited, the blowback from VW’s cheating scandal has hit most of the company’s other models.
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Volkswagen of America, Inc. today reported sales of 23,882 units delivered in November 2015.
And in a related development, Standard & Poor’s Tuesday downgraded VW debt from A- to BBB+, a one-notch drop and still safely an investment grade rating.
The German automaker blames a stop-sale it implemented on all 2.0-liter 4-cylinder TDI vehicles as well as for the 3.0L V6 for its lackluster sales, though diesel engines are far less popular in the USA than they are in European markets. Its sales fell as the company’s newly redesigned 2016 Passat entered showrooms earlier this month. The Golf, for example, only went home to 774 customers last month, a drop of 64 percent.
Volkswagen of America COO Mark McNabb mentioned in his statement: “Volkswagen is working tirelessly on an approved remedy for the affected TDI vehicles”. The Tiguan, which doesn’t even have a diesel variant (weirdly), is heavily incentivized and sales were up almost 90 percent year over year, and new models like the Golf R and e-Golf (VW’s only electric car) bumped sales a little bit. Due to this new content addition in the vehicle, $1,315 has been added to the base price.
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Volkswagen has submitted proposals to the EPA and CARB to fix the nearly half million non-conforming diesel cars it sold in the USA over the past 7 years.
