Matthias Mueller has officially been named the new CEO of the Volkswagen Group effective immediately the German automaker announced on Friday.
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The carmaker has said 11 million vehicles worldwide were fitted with software similar to the kind that allowed the company to rig the USA tests, but said it was not turned on in the bulk of them.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has accused VW of installing the so-called “defeat device” used to cheat emissions tests in 482,000 cars sold in the United States.
Volkswagen chief executive Martin Winterkorn resigned over the scandal but insisted he was not aware of “any wrongdoing on my part”.
Volkswagen also exonerated its U.S.-based engineering laboratory of any culpability in the automaker’s admitted conspiracy to rig US diesel-emissions testing, saying that its California engineers conducted diesel-exhaust testing under strict control of their German counterparts, using protocols and procedures provided to them from VW headquarters.
Separately, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported that a Volkswagen technician raised concerns about illegal practices in connection with emissions levels in 2011.
“The board will also dismiss the head of its USA business, the top engineers of its luxury Audi and Porsche brands and the head of brand development at its VW division, sources added, aiming to show it is acting decisively to end the crisis”.
“It is crucial that something like this never happens again”, Mueller said at the press conference in Wolfsburg.
EPA recently announced its plan to road test cars after the Volkswagen emission scandal.
She said it was too early to say if and when prosecutors may try and interview Winterkorn himself, and that she did not know whether he already had an attorney to represent him.
Volkswagen’s largest North American plant is in Mexico, where most of the affected diesel cars were assembled.
Huber said the board would task a USA law firm with helping investigate the scandal.
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The company has told officials the vehicles in question included cars with 1.6-litre and 2-litre diesel engines in Europe, said German transport minister Alexander Dobrindt. Shortly before the scandal went public, the auto company overtook Toyota – another company that faced recalls and controversy recently – in global sales.
