Martin Winterkorn who stepped down as CEO of Volkswagen on Wednesday could receive a €60 million golden handshake from the scandal-hit auto manufacturer.
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But the worst scandal in the company’s 78-year history showed no sign of abating as Germany’s transport minister said on Thursday it had manipulated tests in Europe as well as the United States.
Earlier, Mueller was responsible for product management at Audi and Lamborghini.
“He is a good choice even though he may be seen as a transitionary CEO until another internal candidate such as VW brand CEO Diess has earned their stripes”, said Arndt Ellinghorst, an analyst at Evercore ISI investment banking advisory firm.
Muller now heads VW’s Porsche sports-car unit. VW is also facing penalties of up to $18 billion in the U.S.
Bloomberg reports Müller will also lead Porsche until a successor is found. His reign is credited with boosting the storied performance vehicle brand’s sales and profits significantly in recent years.
However, the crisis is still deepening.
Speaking at Volkswagen’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, he said he would “do everything to win back the trust of our customers, our employees, our partners, investors and the whole public”.
The company has told officials that the vehicles in question included cars with 1.6-litre and 2-litre diesel engines in Europe, German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt said Thursday.
The company is under pressure to act decisively, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel urging it to quickly restore confidence in a business held up for generations as a paragon of German engineering prowess.
More heads are expected to roll as a result of today’s meeting, possibly including Porsche’s chief of engines and Ulrich Hackenberg, Audi’s famed head of R&D. Hackenberg was previously responsible for VW brand development and Hatz ran the nameplate’s motor development. They are among Volkswagen’s top engineers.
He added the ICCT’s report, published last October, “did not identify the vehicles tested” and denied it indicated the high emissions might be due to use of a “defeat device”.
Osterloh, who also sits on the supervisory board, said, “We need for the future a climate in which problems are not hidden but communicated openly to superiors”. It said that so-called defeat devices have never been used by the company, and that goes for all diesel and gas engines.
Italy has also said it would open its own investigation into whether Volkswagen had cheated in diesel vehicle emissions tests in Europe as it did in the United States.
The company says Michael Horn will remain as president and CEO of Volkswagen Group of America, but its U.S, Canada and Mexico markets will be “combined and significantly strengthened” to form a new “North America region”. Three more executives are facing the sack.
The company has yet to announce which cars and construction years are affected, and whether they will have to be refitted.
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“We are getting lots of phone calls asking ‘What is the likely impact of this?'” said an insider at a major Volkswagen dealership in Britain, who declined to be named.
