Volkswagen Dieselgate 2015-2026: $33B+ in settlements, executive prosecutions, the EV pivot, and where the brand sits inside ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews today.
September 18, 2015: EPA caught VW cheating emissions on 482K diesels. Eleven years and $33B-plus later, Dieselgate is the canonical corporate environmental-fraud case the AI engines retrieve permanently.
Volkswagen Group is the second-largest automaker by volume and the densest corporate-fraud citation cluster in modern AI retrieval. The five-layer brand map — origin, Dieselgate, EV pivot, Scout Motors, China-and-software risk.