Audi Flunks Another Emissions Test

Audi was caught up along with Volkswagen for having fiddled with their diesel engine software to defeat smog checks—a problem that would never have been possible if we had moved to on-road pollution monitoring as free marketeers have been advocating for over 25 years.

But now Audi is spewing a new form of noxious emissions, in the form of a TV ad to run during the Super Bowl tomorrow where they embrace the anti-factual feminist ideology of pay inequity. See for yourself:

Audi has a comment/feedback portal on their website—look for the black “AudiChat” button at the bottom of this page. Here’s what I sent:

Audi Ad

Here’s the reply I received:

Danielle K: Hello and thank you for your feedback.  When we account for all the factors that go into pay, women at Audi are on par with their male counterparts.  There is a lot that goes into calculating pay – individual performance, experience or tenure in the job, etc.  But we are confident in our processes for evaluating pay equality and can confirm pay equality between men and women.  Please visit http://audi.us/Progress for details on Audi of America’s commitment to equality for all of our employees.

But the ad didn’t just boast of Audi’s own company efforts. And if they used the same filter here in evaluating the supposed “pay gap” (“experience, tenure in the job, etc”), they’d know the main story line of the ad is wrong. They used general language about how “my daughter” will “automatically be valued as worth less than every man she ever meets.”

I recommend that Audi hear from a lot of us. Go to their “AudiChat” link at the note above and let them know they’ve lost thousands of potential customers by indulging the political correctness of their ad agency. Heck, if they get enough blowback today, they might even pull the ad before game time, or re-run their rather good one from the 2010 Super Bowl (although this ad is ironic since Audi’s “clean diesel” wasn’t so clean):

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