Berlin: Volkswagen must fully clear up an emissions cheating scandal concerning millions of vehicles, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman said today.
In a public statement released Tuesday, Porsche said it was stopping sales of 2014 through 2016 Cayenne Diesel SUVs, but it did not admit to any wrongdoing. An Audi spokesperson stated they are determining how many of their vehicles are effected by the new development.
Volkswagen has revealed that the fixing of emissions might not only be limited to diesel engine cars…admitting that petrol engine cars are affected as well. While the findings mostly apply to smaller diesel engines, one gasoline engine is also affected. That may seem like a drop in the bucket compared with Volkswagen’s earlier recall of 8.5 million diesel vehicles in Europe alone.
In the notice, the EPA says that VW as a whole developed and installed a defeat device in Audi, Porsche and Volkswagen cars equipped with the 3-liter diesel engine. Now the software is turning up in the more powerful V6 engines commonly found in sports and luxury cars.
The move pulls Porsche and Audi deeper into the scandal that has already engulfed the corporate parent Volkswagen AG and its mass-market VW brand, shaving almost 20 billion euros ($22 billion) off its market capitalization. Porsche called them “unexpected”, and said that it believes the Cayenne Diesel was never out of compliance with emissions rules.
“The new claims pose further challenges to Volkswagen’s financial flexibility and competitive position and heighten concerns about its internal control and governance issues”, said Moody’s lead analyst for VW, Yasmina Serghini.
The German carmaker also revealed on Tuesday that carbon-dioxide emissions had been understated – leading it to underestimate the fuel consumption – and added 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) to its expected costs of the scandal.
“We all have an interest that everything at VW is turned over and reviewed”, Mr. Dobrindt said, adding that the government wanted to force the company to pay the additional vehicle taxes to be incurred by the higher CO² emissions levels.
In the midst of the negative revelations, the European Commission (EC), the executive arm of the European Union, said in Brussels on November 4 that VW should accelerate its probe into the scandal over the defeat devices.
