new delhi on a day the government termed volkswagen groups emissions cheating scandal as a well thoughtout crime group officials and car industry experts said that the global scam having the size of a tsunami will hit the brand hard in india and dissuade many customers from buying its vehicles for now rivals such as maruti suzuki hyundai and honda are ex pected to gain though the ad vantage will be limited in view of vw groups notsosignifi cant market share volkswagen group sells vehicles under the vw audi and skoda brands and their officials are nervous abou the impact of the scandal on sa les we are still trying to look into the issue it is not a very go od situation and we are trying to assess the damage at the reta il level a top official within the group told toi but refused to be identified an indication of the negative impact on the brand can be seen from the hammering that it has received in the us where sales plunged 25 in november even as vws rival automakers continued to post gains us was the first country to detect the cheat device fraud an official at a vw dealership in delhi said existing customers have been making calls and seeking details about the status and safety of their vehicles they are concerned and we have been clarifying the companys position however there is no confirmation yet about cancellation of bookings overall investments by the vw group in india are estimated at around rs 6000 crore and it has not been a smooth ride for the auto major while being a leader across europe and one of the largest players in the worlds biggest market china the vw brand has failed to stand up to stronger rivals such as maruti suzuki hyundai and honda this scandal will definitely have an impact on the group customers today follow important developments and the younger buyers are very concerned about the environment said abdul majeed a partner at pwc this will be like a tsunami the brand will take time to come out of this adman prahlad kakkar said overcoming the guilt of cheating will be an uphill task people are just not confident about a brand when it is involved in cheating this will make the vw and group brands nonviable at least in the shortrun kakkar said industry analysts also pointed out the groups poor performance in india despite significant investments see graphicaudi has been the only bright spot in indian operations pradeep saxena india head of automotive retail consultancy firm sewells group said the mood against the volkswagen brands will be further dampened but how much this is difficult to assess a car is an expensive purchase and obviously people do not want to take a risk