The US Environmental Protection Agency disclosed last week that stealth software makes VW’s 2009-2015 model cars powered by 2.0-litre diesel engines run cleaner during emissions tests than in actual driving.
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The supervisory board’s executive committee said in a statement Wednesday that Winterkorn “had no knowledge of the manipulation of emissions data”, and that it respected his offer to resign and request to be terminated. In addition to the USA and Germany, Volkswagen is also facing investigations from France, South Korea and Italy.
The new CEO said his priority is winning back the trust that has been lost in the company after the scandal.
Mr Mueller replaces Martin Winterkorn, who resigned this week after it was revealed VW had fitted millions of cars and vans with software that allowed them to falsely pass emissions tests. However, he stressed he had not been aware of any wrongdoing.
“There will be further personnel consequences in the next days and we are calling for those consequences”, Volkswagen board member Olaf Lies told the Bavarian broadcasting network, without elaborating.
Official tests will begin on October 1 on four of five affected Volkswagen models – the Golf, Jetta, Beetle and the Audi A3 – which are sold here, according to the Environment Ministry. However, they are miles apart as one demonstrates how everything is now wrong in the industry while the other is pointing towards a new direction – a diesel-free future.
He added the ICCT’s report, published last October, “did not identify the vehicles tested” and denied it indicated the high emissions might be due to use of a “defeat device”.
Volkswagen was not immediately available for comment.
The world has come crashing down for Volkswagen ever since the news about it emission scandal broke.
His nomination would be made public early on Friday afternoon, the newspaper said. It said that so-called defeat devices have never been used by the company, and that goes for all diesel and gas engines.
The head of Porsche – Matthias Mueller – was promoted to the top job at Volkswagen just hours after the German government said the group had illegally manipulated emissions tests on 2.8 million diesel vehicles in Germany.
In a 2011 report called The Dark Side of Volkswagen, Greenpeace had highlighted the lobbying done by the German auto manufacturer and other vehicle companies vis-à-vis the European Commission about gas emissions.
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No replacement was announced, and VW still has no easy exit from a scandal that has suddenly dented a reputation for trustworthiness that took decades to build. The smog-test trickery has erased billions in market value and raised the specter of criminal investigations and billions more in fines.
