The Department for Transport has announced plans to begin re-running emissions tests on cars from different manufacturers in the wake of the Volkswagen (VW) emissions fixing scandal, which erupted a week ago.
Advertisement
Volkswagen’s board appointed the head of its Porsche unit as CEO on Friday, handing longtime company insider Matthias Mueller the task of trying to lead the world’s top-selling automaker past a growing emissions scandal.
With the so-called “defeat device” deactivated, the auto can spew pollutant gases into the air, including nitrogen oxide, in amounts as much as 40 times higher than emissions standards, said the Environmental Protection Agency.
A delay in meeting new EPA emissions targets for diesel models would have been very costly for Volkswagen, explained Nerad.
Mueller, 62, will take over with immediate effect, replacing Martin Winterkorn who stepped down two days earlier, said the head of the supervisory board, Berthold Huber, in the carmaker’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, northern Germany.
Even if Winterkorn was unaware of the cheating, experts say it’s unlikely it could have been the work of only a few individuals.
The disclosures followed an explosive week for VW in which the auto giant admitted falsifying tests by using a complex software programme in its vehicles.
Volkswagen has said 11 million cars globally had the software fitted, but it was not activated in the bulk of them.
“We urge Volkswagen to come forward as soon as possible to confirm if cars in Australia have been affected and what actions they are intending to take”.
Attorney generals in at least 27 U.S. states and Washington DC announced they would jointly investigate VW’s representations to consumers and would send subpoenas to the company, according to the Michigan Attorney General’s Office.
Daimler AG, the maker of Mercedes cars, is rejecting claims by a German environmental group that it appears to have been involved in manipulation of emissions data.
“Today we are putting vehicle manufacturers on notice that our testing is going to include additional evaluation and tests designed to look for potential defeat devices”, said Christopher Grundler, director of the EPA Office of Transportation & Air Quality.
“In the name of the supervisory board, I apologise in every way to our customers, the public, the authorities and investors”, he said.
Graziano Delrio said on a late-night talk show that checks will be conducted at dealerships before sale. Delrio, citing a “problem of health, trust”, said the truth must be established. The automaker’s worst scandal in its 78-year history worsened as Germany’s transport minister said on Thursday that VW had manipulated tests in Europe as well as the US.
In the United States, Volkswagen has been hit with dozens of lawsuits on behalf of customers who say they were duped. To help get there, he set a goal of nearly tripling VW’s American market share to 6 percent by 2018.
In 2011, scientists with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy, reported that average on-road emissions of tested diesel vehicles exceed allowed limits by up to 14 times. According to the media, the new CEO of the Volkswagen Group will be assigned to fix the reputation of Volkswagen Group and tackle the host of legal challenges facing the company.
Advertisement
But BMW said it had not cheated in pollution tests, as Volkswagen has admitted to doing.
