Volkswagen’s new CEO has sketched out a wide-ranging transformation of the company that will see it focus more on electric vehicles and services such as car-sharing as it seeks to get past its scandal over cheating on diesel emissions tests.
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Chief Executive Matthias Mueller talked to President Obama for a couple of minutes during his visit to Hanover on Sunday.
Speaking at a press conference to discuss full-year results in Wolfsburg on Thursday, Mueller said the company was looking for ways to expand its offering in the area of digital mobility services. “Of course I also expressed the hope that I will be able to continue to fulfil my responsibility to 600,000 employees and their families as well as suppliers and dealers”.
The investigation comes six months after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it would review all light-duty diesel vehicles in the United States after Volkswagen’s admission that software in its diesel vehicles sold since 2009 allowed them to emit up to 40 times legally allowable pollution.
The scandal broke when the EPA took action against Volkswagen.
Volkswagen is now working out a settlement with US authorities in federal court in San Francisco, and has said that would include an offer to buy back as many as 500,000 of the just under 600,000 defective vehicles.
The company said last week that it lost 1.5 billion euros on an after-tax basis after a profit of 11.1 billion euros in 2014.
He also says that the company is planning to launch over 20 additional models by 2020.
Daimler AG appointed investigators from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu to help gather documents and e-mails on its diesel-engine emissions, part of a probe requested by the U.S. Department of Justice. The company was found by US regulators to be fitting its cars with software that could cheat emissions tests.
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The annual report showed that Volkswagen would pay 12 current and former managers 63 million euros ($72 million) in base pay and bonuses for previous year. The company said on Thursday that it had set aside €7 billion (S$10.7 billion) for legal costs worldwide, even though in theory it faces fines of US$18 billion (S$24.2 billion) in the USA alone, plus compensation to owners. In fact, sales revenues in 2015 were up 5.4% to 213.3 billion euros.
