Before the court hearing, Michael Horn, head of Volkswagen Americas, apologized to the congressional committee October. 8, Thursday, about the cheating on the pollution tests.
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Volkswagen said it handed over a “comprehensive collection of documents” to the officials, and would support the work of the prosecutors to the best of its ability.
Under questioning from Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois, Horn said VW isn’t considering offering owners loaner cars because the US government says the diesels equipped with a so-called defeat device are safe to drive.
The corporate offices of Volkswagen in Wolfsburg, Germany, were raided by investigators seeking information on the emissions scandal.
Has Volkswagen installed a second computer software in its diesel vehicles that also affects the operation of its emission controls in its 2016 models in the US?
“To my knowledge this was a couple of software engineers”.
He said he was unable to sleep at night after the company admitted that 11 million vehicles were fitted with a defeat device aimed at cheating emissions tests. He also added the use of the software was by decisions of individuals who worked at the company but not a corporate strategy. The company said such devices can sense engine performance, road speed “and any other parameter for activating, modulating, delaying or deactivating” emissions controls. He claimed that he had “no understanding” of what defeat devices were and only learned of them at a meeting in September that Volkswagen held with U.S. and California air regulators.
The biggest crisis in Volkswagen’s 78-year history has wiped more than a third off its share price, forced out its longtime chief executive and sent shockwaves through both the global auto industry and the German establishment. But it won’t happen overnight: Horn said that the full recall could take at least one to two years to complete, notes The Verge.
The automaker is also conducting its own, internal investigation, but the company isn’t releasing those results, yet.
The Volkswagen Group of America chief said the vast majority of the roughly 482,000 diesel passenger cars covered by the allegations could not be fixed until at least 2017 because the solution requires the installation of new equipment.
“Our immediate goal is to develop a remedy for our customers”, said Horn, but he declined to release the timetable for the company to make the remedy when Dianna DeGette, Representative from Colorado asked him.
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The automaker has not said exactly when it will submit a new application to the EPA for diesel-vehicle certification.
