Daimler, which makes Mercedes-Benz cars, said on Friday that it was conducting an internal investigation of emissions software at the request of the Justice Department.
Advertisement
Officials on a conference call with journalists were asked several questions about the matter but said they could provide no information beyond Thursday’s announcement, as the issue overshadowed the company’s announcement of first-quarter earnings.
Daimler pledged to “investigate possible indications of irregularities and of course take all necessary actions”, it said as its shares went into a tailspin on the Frankfurt stock exchange.
With that attitude, it was no surprise that both automakers are getting U.S. scrutiny, or that the emissions-cheating scandal could be growing.
The sum is significantly higher than first anticipated at Volkswagen, which had previously set aside 6.7 billion euros ($7.5 billion). The German regulator said it was ordering the recall of 630,000 diesel cars because they were programmed to turn down emissions controls in cold weather.
VW already has admitted to programming diesel cars so they pass USA emissions tests in labs but spew illegal amounts of pollution on real roads.
The company said that a recent collective lawsuit against the company for allegedly using a “defeat device” to cheat the emissions regulations in the USA has no basis in truth, Spiegel reports. The release of findings from an investigation VW commissioned from a US law firm has been been pushed back.
The company’s financial results for 2015 were twice delayed while it pursued an investigation in the years-old deception that involved programming engines to dupe diesel-emissions tests. The recalls involve Mercedes, Opel and Volkswagen and its subsidiaries Audi and Porsche.
“We have just seen that consumer rights, and the environment by the way, are being protected better and more efficiently in the USA than in Germany”, Jürgen Trittin, a former German environment minister, said after the USA deal was announced.
Volkswagen on Friday posted a net loss of EUR1.58 billion for 2015, compared with a net profit of EUR10.85 billion a year earlier.
Chief Executive Matthias Mueller also said he could not put a figure on the total cost of the scandal – which some analysts have estimated at about $30 billion – but there was no reason to believe the 2015 loss would lead to job cuts.
VW had faced a court deadline for solutions to the emissions scandal and San Francisco district court judge Charles Breyer said the agreement in principle would give owners of its 2.0 litre diesel cars choices for compensation which also included cancelling the contracts for those under lease.
Advertisement
France’s Peugeot Citroen was raided by anti-fraud investigators on Thursday as part of investigations into pollutants in the industry.
