Volkswagen ornaments sit in a box in a scrap yard in Berlin, … Winterkorn has said he had no knowledge of the software.
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In this March 12, 2015 picture Volkswagen CEO, Martin Winterkorn, …
A Volkswagen diesel sits behind a security fence on a storage lot…
The software at the center of Volkswagen’s emissions scandal in the US was built into the automaker’s cars in Europe as well, though it isn’t yet clear if it helped cheat tests as it did in the USA, Germany said Thursday.
According to Volkswagen’s inner regulations, Winterkorn can get severance if the supervisory board terminates his contract early, but the payment can be blocked if he does something that causes this exit.
Sources familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal that chief executive officer of Porsche AG, Matthias Mueller, will be named Volkswagen CEO at a full board meeting on Friday.
“Using a defeat device in cars to evade clean air standards is illegal and a threat to public health”, the EPA’s Cynthia Giles said in announcing the Notice of Violation Friday.
VW has said 11 million vehicles worldwide were fitted with defeat device software which conned testers in the USA into believing their vehicles met environmental standards.
Winterkorn said: “I am shocked by the events of the past few days”.
USA authorities are planning criminal investigations after discovering that Volkswagen programmed computers in its cars to detect when they were being tested and alter the running of their diesel engines to hide their true emissions. Reports of false tests by other brands knocked BMW stock down 10 percent.
In response, he indicated that random tests will be implemented to examine diesel cars made by Volkswagen and other automakers, as a fear grows that Volkswagen was not the only company to avoid fully complying with emissions regulations in this manner.
Separately, the European Commission said in a statement: “We invite all member states – in addition to the ones who are already doing so – to carry out all the necessary investigations”.
Olaf Lies, economy and transport minister of VW’s home state Lower Saxony, which holds a 20% stake in the company, said the investigation into the scandal was only just starting.
“There must be people responsible for allowing the manipulation of emission levels to happen”, he told rbb-Inforadio.
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On Wednesday, Martin Winterkorn quit as VW’s chief executive and accepted responsibility for “irregularities found in diesel engines”.
