The scandal is hurting the finances of both VW and its parent holding company Porsche SE.
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“VW is leaving us all speechless”, said Arndt Ellinghorst of banking advisory firm Evercore ISI after the disclosure about the smaller engines.
On Tuesday, Porsche’s North American division said it would voluntarily discontinue sales of diesel-powered Cayennes from model years 2014 to 2016 until further notice. European regulators demanded VW speed up its investigation into the cheating, while the company halted sales of seven models in the USA that allegedly were part of the plot.
Late Tuesday, VW said it also had found “unexplained inconsistencies” in emissions from a few of its vehicles of carbon dioxide.
Wednesday sale stoppage went far beyond these models to include any 2013-2016 model-year Volkswagen and Audi vehicles with 3.0-liter diesel engines alongside the Porsche SUVs.
In addition to 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide that vastly understated their actual emissions of smog-causing pollutant nitrogen oxide, VW now has 80,000 cars tooling around Europe emitting illegal levels of carbon dioxide.
It did say the new number was predominantly comprised of vehicles with diesel engines.
In talks with the authorities – whom Volkswagen did not identify – the company said it hoped to come up with a “reliable assessment of the legal, and the subsequent economic consequences, of this not yet fully explained issue”.
At least one gasoline engine is concerned, the company said. The company disclosed no details on where the affected vehicles were sold, the brands affected or whether they had diesel or gasoline-powered engines. The greenhouse gas traps heat from the sun and is blamed for man-made climate change, and so cars in Europe are often taxed according to their Carbon dioxide emissions. While the ratings agency said Volkswagen is financially sound enough – with plenty of cash on hand – to face potentially billions in fines and compensation, its reputation and future earnings remain at risk. The scandal expanded this week when the EPA said Volkswagen had put the cheating software on about 10,000 six-cylinder diesels in the USA, including Porsche and Audi vehicles.
But the agency said that Volkswagen’s business and financial strength give it room to shore up its cash flow for unplanned costs, and so justify the medium investment grade credit rating of A2.
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An in another news, Volkswagen claim that 2016 version are clean of the fraudulent software, the EPA has yet to approve selling this cars, and at the moment it is not clear for how long the sales of the 3 liter diesel engine will be halted.
