How the mighty have fallen. Volkswagen, the second-largest car maker in the word after Toyota, is now a toxic brand.

Established in 1937, the “People’s Car” company, famed for design classics such as the Beetle and ubiquitous reliables such as the Golf, has driven itself into a ditch.

Its systematically cheating of pollution regulations has become a global scandal, but are we really naïve enough to be shocked? Surely this is just one more reminder of the lengths big corporations will go to in order to maximise profit and dominate a market.

The technical ingenuity of this scandal is perhaps unusual, given the deployment of ever more sophisticated ‘defeat devices’ with no other purpose than to allow a car to detect when it was undergoing an emissions test, triggering a reduction in pollution to a fraction of normal levels.

Then there’s the scale of deceit. Over 11 million vehicles have been implicated. Experts reckon that means an extra 1 million tonnes of air pollution every year.

But this hasn’t come out of the blue, and should not be dismissed as an aberration from normal corporate behaviour.

The German Greens have shown that Angela Merkel’s ministers knew months ago about Volkswagen rigging emissions tests, with the government echoing the view of the European Commission that they simply couldn’t prevent such cheating.

Essentially this scandal was viewed as too tough to deal with by the German government. How often have we heard similar excuses for ignoring corporate scandals from ministers in other governments? When we ask why public funds are being handed over to unethical corporations we’re told it’s an operational matter for an agency; when journalists ask for minutes of meetings between ministers and business interests (as with fracking developers in Scotland recently) they get heavily redacted documents.

The emissions scandal hasn’t even been VW’s only corporate cover-up. A group of former employees in Brazil is taking the company to court, alleging that it allowed its workers to be held and tortured under Brazil's military rule during the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Twelve former workers say they were arrested and tortured at a VW factory.

Brazil's national truth commission has highlighted one Volkswagen employee who said: "I was at work when two people with machine guns came up to me. They held my arms behind my back and immediately put me in handcuffs. As soon as we arrived in Volkswagen's security centre, the torture began. I was beaten, punched and slapped."

This will all sound wearily familiar to those who have campaigned for union rights, or against logging, fossil fuels, or the chemical industry in many countries.

Such scandals are such a normal part of the business world that corporations routinely set aside funds to cope with them. VW is reportedly setting aside €6.5 billion to cover the coming storm. BP agreed to pay $18.7bn to settle legal actions following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. And Britain's biggest four banks have set aside almost £50billion to cover fines and lawsuits since the financial crisis.

The VW scandal is playing out like any big corporate scandal. The boss has now resigned and we will soon start seeing full page adverts in newspapers apologising and promising to learn lessons. A change of CEO, a fine, followed by a rebrand or a PR blitz. That’s the routine. Convictions of the guilty people are rare; fundamental change of the criminal corporate mindset seems almost unthinkable.

But this is a more than just a tarnished brand and an opportunity for VW’s competitors. While rivals have sought to deny any similar jiggery-pokery, we know the car industry has a terrible track record.

Earlier this year the US Department of Justice fined GM, America’s largest carmaker, $900m for failing to recall cars with an ignition defect blamed for over 100 deaths and almost 300 injuries. Prosecutors said managers ignored the fault, and put profits before safety. Yet none were charged.

Carmakers are famous for commissioning their own emissions tests, with regulators allowing a range of tricks from removing wing mirrors to taping up doors and windows. Others have used special lubricants to reduce engine friction while some have been known to make test vehicles lighter by removing rear seats.

Some think the exposure of VW’s cheating could prompt a faster switch to cleaner cars. Maybe. But let’s remember BP pledging to go “beyond petroleum”. That corporate makeover was soon dropped, and they are back to maximum extraction and lobbying for further tax breaks.

In any case shifting from petrol and diesel engines to electric won’t solve the related problems of congestion or physical inactivity. There are few corporate interests in making it easy to walk and cycle to work, school and the shops.

Ultimately this is about public health. Air pollution impacts on the heart and lungs, can trigger strokes, heart attacks, and cancers. Cleaner vehicles can help, but only a transformational change in transport policy offers meaningful progress. Successive Scottish Governments have dragged their feet on that.

The VW scandal should serve as a wake-up call for the Scottish Government. They need to realise that as long as cars continue to burn fossil fuels or rely on electricity generated from fossil fuels, greenhouse gases and local air pollution will continue to be a serious problem.

Scotland has missed its climate change targets for four years running, and 15 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities have had to declare Air Quality Management Areas to monitor serious hotspots of pollution.

The downfall of the “People’s Car” should remind ministers that people matter more than corporate profits, and that public policy that serves that common good will always involve challenging big business interests.