VW had been awaiting EPA approval for the 2016 diesels, but withdrew its request as part of its ongoing discussions with US regulators in the wake of its emissions scandal.
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Horn is to appear at a hearing into the scandal of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
Mueller didn’t rule out a wider circle of offenders and said VW is “now clarifying the responsibilities in detail”.
However, the company is still unable to say how long owners will be without their vehicle or whether the work will affect the car’s performance.
VW has admitted putting the defeat devices on cars with diesel engines to switch on pollution controls when they are being tested but turn them off when the software determines that the cars are back on real roads.
Müller will steps into his new position as Volkswagen Group CEO immediately and will also continue to operate as Chairman of Porsche AG until until a successor has been found. The company said it would hire a USA law firm, which it did not identify, to conduct an internal investigation of the emissions deception, which Huber blamed on “developers and technicians” in the company’s motor development operations. Its stock price has plummeted, top executives have been forced to resign and the company’s reputation has taken a major blow. But it wasn’t until last month, Horn said, that VW informed the EPA that it had installed “hidden software” to get around emissions standards.
He added that the crisis could lead to a smaller but better VW Group.
Horn will tell Congress he only learned about the cheating software “over the past several weeks”, VW spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan told Associated Press.
“These events are deeply troubling”, Horn said.
The new chief of embattled carmaker Volkswagen said the recall of diesel cars affected by the pollution cheating scandal could start by January and end by the end of 2016.
The software in the cars’ engine-control computers determined when dynamometer tests were under way.
Following the publication of a study by the West Virginia University early past year, Horn said he was “told that there was a possible emissions non-compliance that could be remedied”. USA regulators made public the wrongdoing on September 18.
The minister said there are 3.6 million 1.6-litre cars in Europe.
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During his speech Mueller revealed that a technical solution to the issue is close – on numerous vehicles only a software upgrade will be needed though a few could need hardware changes too.
