Needless to say, the subcommittee’s members weren’t buying his explanation, with representative Chris Collins (R., N.Y.) calling it “inadequate” and “a sign of arrogance”, scolding Horn by telling him that the automaker’s leadership is either “incompetent” or “complicit in a massive coverup”.
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But he said he first learned about so-called defeat devices being installed on VW diesel cars at the beginning of September, just before the scandal was made public. He will be grilled about how much he knew about emissions cheating and when. Thousands of vehicles already shipped, will be isolated at the ports and Volkswagen dealers will suffer huge losses from it.
The announcement has come one day after the testimony from Volkswagen’s USA chief Michael Horn in front of the Energy and Commerce Committee of the US Congress.
“I’m your Volkswagen driver who always trusted your company, and I’m very disappointed”, he said. Mr. Horn is expected to be inquired as to whether he was aware of the emissions cheating.
Horn continued: “I was also informed that the company engineers would work with the agencies to resolve the issue”.
About 3.6 million diesel cars equipped with 1.6 litre engines manufactured by Volkswagen will require hardware changes to remove emission-cheating technology, Germany’s Ministry of Transportation said on Friday.
The chief executive added during the session that he had no idea what a defeat device was or that Volkswagen used them.
Volkswagen Group Australia said it would write to all affected vehicle owners and would “do everything we can to fix this problem and regain the trust of our customers”. They will testify that NOx, can lead to increased asthma attacks and other respiratory illnesses that can be serious enough to send people to the hospital.
A spokesman for the California Air Resources Board admitted to the newspaper that it is looking into Volkswagen’s certification documents and the impact of a second device.
VW, the world’s largest automaker, faces $18 million in fines in the USA and possible criminal charges as the Justice Department investigates.
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“Emissions software in four-cylinder diesel vehicles from model years 2009-2015 contained a “defeat device” in the form of hidden software that could recognize whether a vehicle was being operated in a test laboratory or on the road”. The company plans to recall vehicles in Europe from next January, but the exact schedule for the same in the U.S. is not confirmed.
