After the shares tanked, Renault said the police conducted a “further investigation on site which aims to definitively validate” preliminary findings by independent investigators that it had not rigged emissions tests.
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A government-mandated independent commission is conducting tests on 100 vehicles made by French carmakers, with 25 from Renault to be checked – equivalent to its French market share.
Detectives took several personal computers belonging to Renault managers, the unions said.
A Renault spokesperson said those representing the authority have said there was not yet any evidence to suggest “the presence of a defeat device on Renault’s vehicles”.
Local unions have reported that several Renault sites were visited by ant-fraud detectives last week, but both Renault and the French finance ministry have declined to comment.
However, share prices recovered to be down 10.5 per cent at the end of the day. “There is nothing special in terms of Renault”, said macron in Berlin. Shares in miner Anglo American jumped more than 13 percent.
Renault and Peugeot have invested heavily in diesels, and the engines account for over half of their sales in France, so the two companies have much to lose from any shift away from the technology over environmental concerns.
Renault’s offices and factories in France were searched several days ago by investigators, with the news sending the automaker’s stocks tumbling by 23 percent, Automotive News Europe reports.
Volkswagen is facing possible fines that could reach into the tens of billions of dollars in the United States alone over the scandal, and faces probes in other countries as well.
Software (Amsterdam: SF6.AS – news) on the Volkswagen engines reduced nitrous oxide emissions when vehicles underwent testing, but running the engine this cleanly on the road would come at the expense of acceleration.
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At around 2AM AEST, Renault shares were trading nine percent lower at 78.86 euros, having earlier slumped as low as 67 euros, a drop of over 20 percent – at that point wiping over 4 billion euros ($4.4 billion) off the company’s value “which is colossal”, the analyst said.
