Inside car graveyard in the middle of a DESERT where thousands of brand-new Audis and VW's were dumped due to scandal

The Sun

3 days ago

BURIED in the blazing desert lies a jaw-dropping 'car graveyard' – packed with thousands of brand-new Audis and Volkswagens dumped in the wake of a huge scandal.
The notorious Volkswagen 'Dieselgate' scandal left a sea of shiny new Audis and VWs baking in the Mojave Desert – sparking worldwide shock.
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The motors were part of a huge buyback scheme after VW was caught cheating diesel emissions tests, with more than 300,000 cars dumped, scrapped or fixed.
The Scandal
The 'Dieselgate' scandal blew up in 2015 when U.S. regulators caught Volkswagen fitting diesel cars with 'defeat devices' – sneaky software that could cheat emissions tests.
The trick? During testing, the cars switched on pollution controls to appear clean, but out on the road they belched nitrogen oxide at up to 40 times the legal limit.
VW admitted the scam spanned 11 million cars worldwide, hitting Audi, Porsche and other subsidiaries.
Lawsuits and multi-billion dollar settlements followed, with the U.S. forcing VW to buy back or fix hundreds of thousands of motors.
But before they could be repaired or scrapped, the company had to stash them somewhere – leading to the surreal sight of more than 300,000 cars lined up in the Mojave Desert, baking under the Californian sun.
Viral drone shots and satellite images show endless rows of gleaming Audis and VWs parked at abandoned airports and vast dusty lots – a haunting monument to one of the car industry's biggest scandals.
What happened next?
After months of baking in the desert, Volkswagen began sorting through the cars.
Some were fixed to meet strict U.S. emissions standards and put back on the market — often at hefty discounts.
Others, deemed too expensive or impossible to repair, were stripped for parts or crushed entirely.
The storage sites slowly emptied over the years, but the Mojave 'car graveyard' became an eerie reminder of the scandal.
Drone footage showed hundreds of vehicles still sitting idle, their paint fading and tyres deflating under the relentless desert heat.
Globally, Dieselgate cost VW more than $30 billion, tarnished its reputation, and accelerated the push toward electric vehicles as the company tried to rebuild trust.
Mojave cars ended up in their final stages — many were shipped abroad, but not for the roads you'd expect.
Others were stripped for parts or crushed entirely if repairs weren't feasible.
The Mojave sites eventually cleared out, but the rows of abandoned Audis and VWs left an unforgettable image of the scandal's scale.
Even today, the story of the desert graveyards serves as a stark reminder of corporate misconduct and the environmental impact of emissions cheating.
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