Volkswagen, shortened to VW, is a German automaker founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front, known for the iconic "Beetle" and headquartered in Wolfsburg. It is the flagship marque of the Volkswagen Group, the largest automaker by worldwide sales in 2016 and 2017. The group's biggest market is in China, which delivers 40% of its sales and profits.
The Volkswagen Beetle—officially the Volkswagen Type 1, informally in German the Käfer, in parts of the English-speaking world the Bug, and known by many other nicknames in other languages—is a two-door, rear-engine economy car, intended for five occupants, that was manufactured and marketed by German automaker Volkswagen (VW) from 1938 until 2003.
The Ford Pinto is a subcompact car that was manufactured and marketed by Ford Motor Company in North America, sold from the 1971 to the 1980 model years. The smallest American Ford vehicle since 1907, the Pinto was the first subcompact vehicle produced by Ford in North America.
Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile is a landmark nonfiction book by consumer advocate Ralph Nader, first published in 1965. Its central theme charged car manufacturers of resistance to the introduction of safety features, and their general reluctance to spend money on improving safety. This pioneering work contains substantial references and material from industry insiders. It was a best seller in non-fiction in 1966.
The Chevrolet Corvair is a compact car manufactured by Chevrolet for model years 1960–1969 in two generations. It is still the only American-designed, mass-produced passenger car with a rear-mounted, air-cooled engine. The Corvair was manufactured and marketed in 4-door sedan, 2-door coupe, convertible, 4-door station wagon, passenger van, commercial van, and pickup truck body styles in its first generation (1960–1964) as well as 2-door coupe, convertible and 4-door sedan in its second (1965–1969).
The Volkswagen Touareg is a mid-size luxury SUV produced by German automaker Volkswagen since 2002 at the Volkswagen Bratislava Plant. The vehicle was named after the nomadic Tuareg people, inhabitants of the Saharan interior in North Africa.
The Volkswagen Sharan is a multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) produced by the German Volkswagen Group and built at the AutoEuropa plant in Palmela, Portugal, since 1995. Through badge engineering, the Volkswagen Sharan shares the same platform with the SEAT Alhambra, and the first generation was also in most respects identical to the Ford Galaxy. Since 2010, the Sharan is in its second generation.
The Volkswagen Type 4 is a large family car manufactured and marketed by Volkswagen of Germany from 1968 to 1974 in two-door and four-door sedan as well as two-door station wagon body styles. The Type 4 evolved through two generations, the 411 (1968–72) and 412 series (1972–74).
The Chevrolet Vega is a subcompact automobile that was manufactured and marketed by GM's Chevrolet subdivision from 1970 to 1977. Available in two-door hatchback, notchback, wagon, and sedan delivery body styles, all models were powered by an inline four-cylinder engine with a lightweight, aluminum alloy cylinder block. The Vega first went on sale in Chevrolet dealerships on September 10, 1970. Variants included the Cosworth Vega, a short-lived limited-production performance model, introduced in the spring of 1975.
A swing axle is a simple type of independent suspension designed and patented by Edmund Rumpler in 1903. This was a revolutionary invention in the automotive industry, allowing wheels to react to irregularities of road surfaces independently, and enable the vehicle to maintain a strong road holding. The first automotive application was the Rumpler Tropfenwagen, later followed by the Mercedes 130H/150H/170H, the Standard Superior, the Volkswagen Beetle and its derivatives, and the Chevrolet Corvair, amongst others.
A direct-shift gearbox, commonly abbreviated to DSG, is an electronically controlled dual-clutch multiple-shaft gearbox in a transaxle design, with automatic clutch operation and with fully automatic or semi-manual gear selection. The first actual dual-clutch transmissions were derived from Porsche in-house development for their Model 962 racing cars in the 1980s.
The Center for Auto Safety is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(3) consumer advocacy non-profit group focused on the United States automotive industry. Founded in 1970 by Consumers Union and Ralph Nader, the group focuses its efforts on enacting reform though public advocacy and pressuring the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and automakers through litigation. For decades, it was led by Executive Director Clarence Ditlow, who died in late 2016 from cancer. Ditlow was widely admired in the auto safety community, although he also had detractors among auto manufacturers. The Center for Auto Safety is currently led by Executive Director Jason Levine.
The Volkswagen Microbus/Bulli concept vehicles are a series of concept cars that are styled to recall the original Volkswagen Microbus built by Volkswagen AG. The first of these was the Volkswagen Microbus Concept Car, first presented at the 2001 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS).
The Volkswagen Tiguan is a compact crossover vehicle (CUV) manufactured by German automaker Volkswagen. Introduced in 2007, the first generation model uses the PQ46 platform of the B6 Generation Volkswagen Passat. All first generation (5N) Tiguans featured two row seating and transverse mounted four-cylinder engines.
The Volkswagen Golf Mk1 is the first generation of a small family car manufactured and marketed by Volkswagen. It was noteworthy for signalling Volkswagen's shift of its major car lines from rear-wheel drive and rear-mounted air-cooled engines to front-wheel drive with front-mounted, water-cooled engines that were often transversely-mounted.
When a person makes a claim for personal injury damages that have resulted from the presence of a defective automobile or component of an automobile, that person asserts a product liability claim. That claim may be against the automobile's manufacturer, the manufacturer of a component part or system, or both, as well as potentially being raised against companies that distributed, sold or installed the part or system that is alleged to be defective.
Road debris, a form of road hazard, is debris on or off a road. Road debris includes substances, materials, and objects that are foreign to the normal roadway environment. Debris may be produced by vehicular or non-vehicular sources, but in all cases it is considered litter, a form of solid waste. Debris may tend to collect in areas where vehicles do not drive, such as on the edges (shoulder), around traffic islands, and junctions.
The Volkswagen Bratislava Plant is an automotive factory and co-located test track in Bratislava, Slovakia owned by Volkswagen Group.
Richard Grossman was an American publisher. Born in Chicago, he worked in the Army Signal Corps and advertising before going into the publishing business. He started his own company, Grossman Publishers, after working for Simon & Schuster. Grossman Publishers was sold to Viking Press in 1968. Later he worked in alternative medicine and psychotherapy, including as director of the Center for Health in Medicine at the Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center; at Beth Israel Medical Center, and the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts’s program for cancer patients.
The Volkswagen emissions scandal, also known as Dieselgate or Emissionsgate, began in September 2015, when the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a notice of violation of the Clean Air Act to German automaker Volkswagen Group. The agency had found that Volkswagen had intentionally programmed turbocharged direct injection (TDI) diesel engines to activate their emissions controls only during laboratory emissions testing which caused the vehicles' NO
x output to meet US standards during regulatory testing, but emit up to 40 times more NO
x in real-world driving. Volkswagen deployed this software in about 11 million cars worldwide, including 500,000 in the United States, in model years 2009 through 2015.
