The European country was just the latest federal government to open an official inquiry or court case against Volkswagen, which admitted installing software that faked actual road test emissions to appear more environmentally friendly was discovered in several types of diesel engines in September.
Advertisement
The crisis has already wiped out more than a fourth of Volkswagen’s market value as its stock price fell.
Indicative of the scale of the problems it faces, Müeller exited the call early to accompany German Chancellor Angela Merkel on a trade trip to China where he will brief her on how it plans to recover falling sales. Volkswagen itself is now looking closer at long-range plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles as it seeks to put the scandal behind it.
The carmaker could go as far as to stop selling VW brand diesel models in the United States, should it incur heavy regulatory and financial penalties, one source said.
VW shares were trading up 3.2 percent at 108.5 euros as of 1030 GMT, the top performer in Germany’s blue-chip DAX index.
The Environmental Protection Agency in the USA found that VW cars with defeat devices produced nitrogen oxide pollutants at up to 40 times the legal standard.
“If you take out diesel as a key solution…, initially conventional hybrid technology, and then plug-in hybrids, will have to be used to fill the gap”, said a person close to AVL, a privately-owned global powertrain specialist.
Volkswagen CEO Matthias Mueller had a surprise motto in store for the embattled carmaker after reporting its first loss in more than 15 years: It should be a fun place to work again.
The German auto maker announced that it has set aside 6.7 billion euros (£4.8 billion) to deal with the controversy over its installation of software created to cheat emissions tests.
The company said it did not know what the ultimate cost of the scandal would be. On Wednesday, the financial consequences of the fraud began to become apparent.
VW said it expected profits for the full year to be “down significantly”.
“We see it as a positive signal that VW has pretty much kept the provision for the scandal ($7.3 billion set aside) unchanged”, said Arndt Ellinghorst at Evercore ISI, a London-based firm.
Volkswagen’s robust balance sheet can at least partly offset a few of the anticipated costs.
Witter said the company had no plans at the moment to cut its dividend. Strong cashflow and stable demand for its vehicles suggest VW is in decent shape to absorb the financial impact of what has come to be known as “dieselgate”.
Advertisement
VW on Wednesday reported an operating loss for the third quarter of 3.48 million euros, which was in line with the loss estimated by analysts of 3.47 billion.
