There's An Audi Graveyard With Thousands Of Brand New Audis: No, We're Not Joking
Any automotive enthusiast, when they see a luxury car like an Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, or any other car stranded and rotting in the open, feels a sense of pain. Now imagine what the pain would be when we tell everyone about an Audi-Volkswagen graveyard in Mojave, California, where not a hundred or two hundred, but thousands of luxury cars are rotting. Yes, you heard that right—there are thousands of Audis, Volkswagens, and Porsches that have been abandoned and are collecting dust.
Audi and Volkswagen graveyard in Mojave Desert
The images of these luxury cars stranded in the USA have been shared on Instagram by Inside History on their page. In these images, we can note that there are multiple rows of Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, and some other cars from the VW Group standing next to each other. Some reports claim that there are around 21,000 cars in total at this location.
Reportedly, a total of 134 acres of land has been leased by the Volkswagen Group at the Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville, Mojave Desert, California. What's even more shocking is that the Mojave Desert car lot of Volkswagen is not the only Audi-VW graveyard. Rather, there are 36 other locations across the USA where almost all new and customer buyback cars have been stored.
Why are these cars rotting in the desert?
Now, if you are an automotive enthusiast, you might already know about this. However, if you are someone who wants to know why these cars are parked in the open, here is the reason: back in September 2015, a massive corporate scandal from Volkswagen was revealed to the public. It was found that Volkswagen was using software in its diesel vehicles in the USA to cheat emissions tests.
According to reports, what happened was that Volkswagen engineers installed illegal software in their cars' engine control units (ECUs), which could detect when the vehicle was being tested for emissions. It did so based on steering angles, speeds, engine operation, and air pressure. What this software would do is reduce the nitrogen oxides output to levels permitted by the US EPA.
However, when the vehicles were used normally, they would release 40 times more nitrogen oxides into the environment. The name of this scandal was Dieselgate, or the Volkswagen emissions scandal, and as a result of it, the VW Group had to buy back cars worth $7.4 billion in the USA alone. Also, on top of buying back all the unsold inventory and customer cars, they had to pay additional fines.
Volkswagen was fined $14.7 billion for settlement with owners, dealers, and government agencies. Also, $4.3 billion was paid by the company in criminal and civil penalties. Additionally, billions of dollars were paid to environmental programs, EV infrastructure, and others as punishment. In total, there were over 11 million cars across the world that were affected.
What is the current situation?
Reportedly, over 13,000 cars have been resold after making changes. Also, 28,000 have been destroyed so far. Presently, the remaining cars are awaiting emissions upgrades, scrapping, or international resale. Volkswagen has claimed that these cars, especially in the Mojave Desert, are routinely maintained to ensure operability.