From Volkswagen's diesel emissions scandal to Ford's F-150 crash-test do-over, we look back at the 10 biggest blunders of 2015.
Volkswagen's emissions mess
Is it possible to convey the enormousness of this thing adequately? The company set aside more than $7 billion to cover scandal-related costs, but that's merely the beginning of the damage. There's brain drain: A CEO stepped down; senior, key engineers, including Ulrich Hackenberg, father of Volkswagen's MQB modular architecture, have left. VW's rep in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere is tarnished.
In the U.S., its dealers are in crisis, its business strategy in tatters. That pipe dream of selling a million cars a year? Fuggedaboutit. Instead of focusing on new models, it's scrambling to figure out how to fix the NOx-spewing diesels and compensate owners. As rivals are increasing investment in autonomous driving and other technologies, VW is cutting capital spending by 1 billion euros a year. And the aftershocks, such as its admission that it fudged fuel economy numbers, are still coming. Get the idea?