He also indicated that the investigation into the German carmaker’s emissions scandal won’t spare top managers: ‘This is not only about direct but overall responsibility’.
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The scandal broke when Volkswagen was forced to admit that it had installed emission-cheating software in 11 million diesel engines worldwide.
In a news conference, Hans Dieter Poetsch said “our emissions testing will in future be verified by internal and external third parties and we are also introducing universal real life tests in on-road driving”.
Poetsch said Volkswagen has suspended nine engineers involved in the scandal and it is still “relentlessly searching for those responsible”, including executives.
Volkswagen has announced a fix for vehicles in Europe, where nitrous oxide emissions requirements are less stringent than in the U.S., John says.
Learning from its mistake, the company also vowed to commission emissions testing to independent auditors in the future to avoid winding up in such trudge again. “Based on what we know today, it was a very limited group which acted irresponsibly”, he said.
At a news conference to present the latest developments in the auto giant’s investigation into the affair, VW supervisory board chief Hans Dieter Poetsch and chief executive Matthias Mueller said evidence suggested the scam was the work of just a small group of engineers. An external investigation by a U.S. law firm, commissioned by VW, will be ready for the company’s annual meeting in April.
Potsch revealed that 450 people are involved in the investigation, which has already collected 102 terabytes of data, by his reports.
He said the engine-development unit remained the focus of investigations. “They said it started with the decision to launch this major diesel vehicle campaign in the U.S. But VW developers couldn’t figure how to meet U.S. emissions standards within the timeline and budget they’d been given, so they developed the software defeat device”.
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“Although the current situation is serious, this company will not be broken by it”, he insisted. Cooperation with those authorities was described as “excellent”. The revelation has left the company facing $18 billion in fines from American regulators and prompted the resignation of CEO Martin Winterkorn.
