Seperately, in April, US owners of Daimler’s Mercedes BlueTEC diesel cars filed a class-action lawsuit saying the vehicles contained a device used to cheat emissions tests.
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Shares in German carmaker Daimler, the owner of Mercedes-Benz, dropped by almost 7% in morning trading after it revealed it is conducting an internal investigation into its emissions testing process at the request of the US Department of Justice (DoJ).
Volkswagen said Friday that a diesel emissions-cheating scandal would cost it an astounding $18.2 billion just for 2015, while Daimler revealed that US authorities are sniffing around its tailpipes.
In February, the EPA reportedly asked Daimler for information after USA owners of Mercedes diesel vehicles filed a class-action lawsuit alleging the presence of “defeat” devices in their cars.
The latest developments emerged hours after Peugeot Citroen offices in France were raided and items seized in relation to pollutants – with the company insisting it complied with all regulations.
Germany’s largest auto maker reported a net loss of $1.77 billion previous year, stemming from an about $18 billion charge to earnings, up from $7.5 billion previously. The company, which makes Mercedes Benz vehicles, said it is cooperating with authorities and “will consequently investigate possible indications of irregularities and of course take all necessary actions”.
Sascha Gommel, a Frankfurt-based analyst with Commerzbank, said in an investors note today: “The investigation may be procedural”.
“We can not go into details”, said Daimler’s chief financial officer Bodo Uebber on the DoJ investigation at a press meeting about the results. A United Kingdom government testing program reported that no other manufacturers besides VW had rigged their vehicles, but that all of their cars had higher emissions in real life than on the test track. Daimler’s disclosure comes after a USA district jury sketched that Volkswagen AG has to recompense about 500,000 users of its diesel cars, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL reported. Plus, the cars polluted even more when the temperature was below 50 degrees, he said.
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A day before Volkswagen’s financial disclosure Friday, in a preliminary earnings report, the company agreed on the outlines of a plan to settle some legal claims in the United States. The company still has yet to hammer out a deal on how much it will pay in fines. The company also gave its entire fleet a design makeover and invested heavily to catch up to Audi and BMW in China, the world’s biggest vehicle market by sales.
