Why would that be reputational damage, exactly?
Lets be realistic, they STILL offer considerably more cars than most other manufacturers. They’re also a high volume brand, meaning that the shortage of semi conductors hits VW worse than, for example, Mercedes or BMW.
There’s no reputational damage, unless you’re talking about people that turn this into a impossible scenario. VW continues to offer Tiguans etc with long (and further expanding) waiting times – they suck. They take the cars with high load off the scheme (for, as it looks like, a quarter) – they suck.
Like, what exactly are they supposed to do? Lets be very real here: if i ran a business, my standard customers would get preferential treatment too. Private patients get better treatment than free patients too.
Does it suck that the Tiguan is gone for now? Absolutely, the Elegance was our #1 spot on the shortlist. Do i understand why it’s been removed? Again, absolutely.
But this entitlement and cancel-culture is obnoxious. VW got reputational damage through Dieselgate. That was a real problem/real scandal. This? No. Not even close. This is just people screaming for the screamings sake.