Volkswagen booked its first yearly loss in more than two decades today after taking a 16.2 billion euro (£12.6 billion) hit for costs associated with the emissions scandal.
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Questioned by reporters, VW’s Chief Executive Matthias Mueller admitted he couldn’t say what the total cost will be of the scandal – which affects 11 million cars worldwide – but for previous year alone the company it has set aside 16.2 billion euros.
Volkswagen CEO Matthias Mueller said the company remains “fundamentally healthy” and that he is “convinced that Volkswagen has what it takes to overcome its challenges”.
Volkswagen will grant financial compensation to 480,000 auto owners in addition to buying back or repairing their vehicles that were equipped with software to evade emissions tests, a lawyer for the owners said Friday.
The owners of almost half a million polluting Volkswagens in the US will have the option of selling them back to the company or getting them repaired at VW’s expense, under a deal announced Thursday by a federal judge.
The company’s shares initially fell sharply in Frankfurt trading on Friday, but retraced some of the decline to finish the day off 1.3% at EUR125.45.
The scandal is not just confined to German automakers – Japanese company Mitsubishi Motors and Italy’s FIAT also have questions to answer. Affected models world-wide include the company’s Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, Seat and Skoda brands.
German news agency dpa is reporting that several of the country’s automakers are going to recall a total of 630,000 cars following an investigation into emissions levels.
The regulatory investigation was prompted by Volkswagen’s revelations in September that it had installed software on diesel motors created to cheat on official emissions checks.
The German makers have made a decision to recall the vehicles as a voluntary measure following an investigation launched in the wake of the Volkswagen engine-rigging scandal.
A German probe of 53 models that tested them in the laboratories and on the road found that temperature thresholds at which the controls shut down weren’t justified, Dobrindt said.
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Though no other carmaker besides VW has been found to use so-called “defeat” devices, regulators and environmental groups have criticized the widespread use of engine management systems which switch off emissions treatment to improve engine performance and increase the interval between services. The New York Times reported that Daimler, the company that makes Mercedes-Benz, is being investigated by the US Department of Justice in connection with emissions testing.
