Audi cars boss indicted in dieselgate scandal

This 6 October 2018 video from Australia says about itself:

Audi sacks imprisoned CEO Rupert Stadler | Auto Expert John Cadogan

Poor old Rupie Stadler from Audi: It’s no fun getting boned behind bars.

In an interesting twist on the concept of loyalty, Audi has officially boned former CEO Rupert Stadler. He’s been flicked from the big four-ringed gig and de-coupled from the boards of both monkey-spanking organisations.

You might remember, the board trusted him to run the company, but German prosecutors didn’t trust him not to tamper with evidence relating to the Dieselgate scandal – so he was remanded in custody back in June or July, pending further official investigation.

It remains to be seen who is the more accurate judge of character – the board, or prosecutors. That could take some time to resolve. As I understand it, he is detained but no charges are preferred against him.

He’s the sixth exec to be imprisoned following the scandal – which at its core is probably the most immoral thing a carmaker has ever done. Those arseholes took the calculated, conspiratorial decision at the highest level to kill people prematurely in exchange for additional profit.

If you’ve ever wondered what dieselgate was about, that’s kind of it.

Mr Stadler’s arrest a few months back briefly delayed the launch of the Audi e-Tron, which is French slang for ‘shit’ inconveniently. Hysterically. Obviously they thought that one right through. And France is just next door, #FFS…

Volkswagen said:

“Mr. Stadler is [leaving] because, due to his ongoing pre-trial detention, he is unable to fulfill his duties as a member of the board of management and wishes to concentrate on his defense.”

Those cold-hearted Cherman bastards. Stadler had been in the top job since 2007, and before that he was the Volkswagen big cheese’s official bottom-wiper.

(They don’t do anything for themselves, at that level.)

It’s fair to say that Stadler was involved with e-Tron from the get-go.

Audi of course currently operates under a temporary or ‘space saver’ CEO, Bran Schot. Love those Teutonic names. It makes me want to march, and take over the world.

Big Rupey is a man more accustomed to riding the gravy train to excess city than most. I mean he paid $20,000 for a senior executive beer-fuelled pat on the back party when Volkswagen denied his expenses claim for same in 2016.

I don’t know why they objected. The event had all the usual German senior executive management training hallmarks: Bavarian brass band, beer-drinking competition. No high-class prostitutes bursting out of a cake, though. Disappointingly.

Anyway, it’s fair to say life is somewhat crappier now for the former Audi bigwig. Currently Mr Stadler exists in a state of legal limbo, adrift from the company he loved, languishing in German jail, up to his neck in e-tron…

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

The prosecutor in Munich has accused former Audi CEO Rupert Stadler because of his role in the diesel scandal. In addition to Stadler, three others were charged with manipulating emission values ​​and misleading advertising campaigns. Who those are the German justice departytment does not say.

Stadler is charged with having known at least since the end of September 2015 of the tampering with the emission values ​​of diesel engines at Audi, the luxury brand of Volkswagen. Although he knew, he did nothing to prevent the sale of cars equipped with fraudulent software. …

Manipulation of emissions tests

His three co-defendants are said to have developed the diesel engines for Audi, Volkswagen and Porsche that were equipped with the controversial software. The software allowed the car to recognize a test situation and to produce much fewer emissions than it did on the road.

Stadler was arrested last June in the investigation into the diesel scandal and had been in jail for several months. …

In addition to Stadler and the three others who have now been charged, investigations are ongoing in Germany into 23 other employees of the group who are suspected of being involved in ‘dieselgate’.