New CEO Herbert Diess apologized at the Tokyo Auto Show on Wednesday for the VW’s emissions-cheating scandal.
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The gain in the group shares helped the stock to recover a few of the big losses it incurred after the auto maker warned last month that about 11 million of its vehicles around the world were equipped with the emissions’ cheating software.
CTV News also referred to the head of Volkswagen’s Japan division Sven Stein as bowing for several seconds in a Japanese style of apology. During his visit to the company’s stall at the show to unveil a hybrid SUV, Diess admitted that VW had committed a wrong and the company would make sure that such things do not happen in future.
“Our customers’ confidence and trust is what is most important to us and we are doing everything what we can to win back this trust in our brand and in our great products”. Earlier this month, the company said it would recall 8.5 million diesel cars across the European Union, a move prompted by the German motor transport authority’s ruling ordering a compulsory recall of all affected 2.4 million Volkswagens in the country.
Stein acknowledged after the presentation that sales in Japan had plummeted, more than by a third, although other factors besides the scandal, such as the lack of new models, compared to past year, may also be behind the plunge.
Volkswagen sells about 60,000 vehicles in Japan a year, with a few 600,000 Volkswagen owners on the roads, according to VW.
In global vehicle sales, a closely watched indicator for an automaker’s resonance with customers worldwide, VW had come out No. 1 in the first half of this year, beating Toyota. The company’s third-quarter results slid well into the red, after scandal-related expenses weighed deeply on its latest financials.
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“We will do our utmost to regain lost trust”, said VW Chief Executive Matthias Mueller, who took over the post after his predecessor, Martin Winterkorn, stood down to take responsibility for the scandal.
