Earlier, incoming Volkswagen CEO Matthias Mueller pledged to do everything to win back the trust of the public in the wake of the emissions scandal.
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“At no point was the safety of our customers in dangers, and we will now have even stricter compliance”, he said.
Last week, the EPA found that Volkswagen had falsified pollution tests on 482,000 VW and Audi diesel cars in the U.S. The wider vehicle market has been affected too, with manufacturers fearing a drop in sales of diesel cars and tougher testing.
So far, the “illegal” tampering with emission controls affects about 2.8 million Volkswagen vehicles in Germany with 1.6-litre and 2-litre diesel engines, including light utility vans, Dobrindt said.
The device switched engines to a cleaner mode during official tests, but once on the road, the cars produced nitrogen oxide pollutants at up to 40 times the legal standard.
Volkswagen is now under investigation by government agencies in both the U.S and Germany, the results of which will likely end up in hefty fines and possibly criminal charges.
It added that the new testing procedures will be more vigorous to prevent automakers from cheating, and will more closely approximate the emissions from a vehicle in real-world driving conditions. VW has already confirmed that 11 million of its cars worldwide could be part of the emission-cheating scheme.
The EPA and the California Air Resources Board uncovered the defeat device software in the Volkswagen cars after independent analysis at West Virginia University raised questions about the cars’ emissions levels.
Senior members of the company’s supervisory board had agreed on the choice of Mueller, the report said, quoting two sources close to the board.
The Volkswagen Group includes 12 brands, and the German company has yet to detail fully what cars where were involved. Winterkorn took responsibility for Volkswagen’s actions, although the eight-year CEO said he had no knowledge of emissions cheating.
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Still, Volkswagen launched a broad reorganization of the automaker that will group its USA, Canada and Mexico operations into a new North America unit overseen by Winfried Vahland, the current chairman of Czech division Skoda.
