Volkswagen confirmed the loss it reported on Wednesday was its first quarterly loss in at least 15 years but, due to accounting changes, was unable to say precisely when the last loss occurred.
Advertisement
The Commission said the new, more realistic tests were a crucial step given that cars out on the road produced emission levels 400 percent higher than in the laboratory. However, VW said that it was still forecasting a rise of up to 4 percent in sales revenue for the whole of the year.
The new CEO has said he’ll build on his predecessor’s plan to decentralize operations to make Volkswagen leaner and more cost-efficient by avoiding bottlenecks at headquarters that have delayed decisions in the past.
VW has said it may also set aside money to help support sales if deliveries are hit by the scandal.
Volkswagen, which has just been overtaken by Toyota as the world’s biggest carmaker in terms of sales, said it ran up a net loss of 1.673 billion euros ($1.85 billion) in the three-month period, compared with a profit of 2.971 billion euros a year earlier. The cost “is enormous but manageable”, he said.
Lawsuits are flying after VW was found to have sold 11 million diesels secretly adapted to produce lower emissions during lab testing. For the nine months up to September, the loss was 3.3 billion, a 64-per cent dive from 9.4 billion past year.
VW CFO Frank Witter noted that VW was able to raise its net liquidity by 6.3 billion euros to 27.8 billion euros during the quarter.
In the wake a Volkswagen cheating scandal, the member states met at the Technical Committee of Motor Vehicles to vote for the kind of testing that caught VWs in the first place.
The biggest business crisis in its 78-year history has wiped more than a quarter off VW’s stock market value, forced out its long-time chief executive and tarnished a business held up for generations as a model of German engineering prowess. The appearances are crucial as Volkswagen braces for costs that analysts have estimated could total from $22.1 billion to as much as $86 billion.
Motorists have not been told when their vehicles will be recalled, although VW bosses said the process is expected to begin in the new year.
The so-called defeat device software was discovered in a University of West Virginia lab in September after a group of researchers tested several Volkswagen diesel engines.
Advertisement
Mueller, new to the role after the ouster of longtime CEO Martin Winterkorn, acknowledged that “the CEO does not usually participate in quarterly earnings calls”, but described his participation as “imperative to share my view of the situation and the key priorities we have set ourselves”.
