European Union nations have agreed on stricter emissions testing for diesel cars in the wake of the Volkswagen scandal.
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While the company predicted its profit will drop significantly this year because of the costs, its underlying business is holding up.
VW stuck to its guidance for full-year deliveries to be on a par with last year’s record 10.14 million auto sales.
Company shares jumped 3.7 percent on the announcement in morning trading in Europe.
The German group reported a third-quarter operating loss of €3.48 billion, in line with a €3.47 billion loss that was forecast in a Reuters poll of analysts. However, VW said that it was still forecasting a rise of up to 4 percent in sales revenue for the whole of the year.
Volkswagen AG contained the initial financial fallout from cheating on emissions tests as its namesake vehicle brand lifted third-quarter margins and provisions to cover recalls rose only moderately. Up to 11 million cars worldwide have the deceptive software.
“There’s been a slight impact but overall on a group level we are fine with order intake and the diesel [to gasoline vehicle sales] ratio”, said sales chief Axel Kalthoff. Experts had taken comfort in VW’s strong balance sheet, indicating the carmaker ought to have the ability to deal with the expenses from regulation penalties, legal cases and refits that a few have stated, could total up to 35 billion euros. Having to set aside the massive chunk of change left VW with a €2.52 billion loss for Q3 2015.
Volkswagen, which has just been overtaken by Toyota as the world’s biggest carmaker in terms of sales, ran up a net loss of 1.673 billion euros ($1.86 billion) in the three-month period, compared with a profit of 2.971 billion euros ($3.30 billion) a year earlier.
“We have to look beyond the current situation and create the conditions for Volkswagen’s successful further development”, said Muller in Wolfsburg on Wednesday.
“We are doing everything we can to bring back this trust in our brand”, said Diess. 60% of cars on French roads are diesel vehicles, due to increased fiscal incentives for this type of engine, which lost 7 billion to the state each year according to the French Court of Auditors. He added that the new strategy will be developed over the coming months before being unveiled in the middle of 2016.
The head of VW’s Japan division Sven Stein, who appeared at the VW booth before Diess, bowed for several seconds in a Japanese style of apology.
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“On behalf of my entire company, I’d like to apologize”, said Diess, a recent hire from BMW, stressing that the priority is to fix the problem, uncover what happened and make sure the scandal never happens again.
