Volkswagen graveyard pic takes top prize in 2018 National Geographic contest

It was one of the biggest corporate scandals in history — and this award-winning picture perfectly sums up what happens when we put greed above all else.

When German automaker Volkswagen was caught cheating emission testing regulators in one of the biggest corporate scandals in decades, the company was forced to embark on a massive buyback of its fraudulent vehicles.

When the widescale deception was publicly revealed by the US Environment Protection Agency in 2015, VW spent more than $10 billion to repatriate about 350,000 diesel vehicles in the US.

The company has dumped those cars at 37 sites across the country, including a shuttered suburban Detroit football stadium, a former Minnesota paper mill and a desert graveyard in California.

Thousands of polluting cars now sit idle in the desert, an almost beautiful blight on the environment — at least when captured from above.

Photographer Jassen Todorov snapped the VW graveyard while flying overhead recently and one of the pictures he produced has been chosen as a grand prize winner at the 2018 National Geographic Photo Contest.

This aerial shot of the VW graveyard in the Mojave Desert took out top prize at 2018 National Geographic Photo Contest. Picture: Jassen Todorov.

Countless Volkswagen and Audi cars manufactured between 2009 to 2015 with 2.0-litre, four-cylinder engines now lay strewn across the Mojave Desert like a forgotten carpark in a zombie apocalypse.

“These cars are just sitting out there and collecting dust,” Mr Todorov told National Geographic.

The scene is a testament to the tension that sometimes exists between unfettered capitalism and increasingly important need to protect our environment.

“By capturing scenes like this one, I hope we will all become more conscious and more caring for our beautiful planet,” he said.

VOLKSWAGEN TO DITCH THE COMBUSTION ENGINE

This week Volkswagen announced that it will begin rolling out its last generation of combustion engine cars in 2026, in its latest green pledge as it looks to turn the corner on the emissions cheating scandal.

The automaker is pouring money into electric vehicles and said it would phase out its diesel and petrol cars as it looks to meet the emissions targets of the 2015 Paris climate deal by 2050.

Volkswagen’s pivot towards electric cars has, in part, been spurred by efforts to shake off its ongoing “dieselgate” scandal.

The group has paid billion in fines after it admitted to installing cheating software in 11 million diesel vehicles designed to dupe pollution tests.