Volkswagen CEO Resigns after Scandal — Breaking News

Bob Rand poses for a photo in his 2014, fully loaded Volkswagen…

It says diesel 4x4s routinely post much higher emission levels than claimed.

Volkswagen is known as a top-down organization, with even…

“Volkswagen needs a fresh start”, Winterkorn announced on Wednesday. You know, in American, this may well evolve into a criminal investigation.

Fears are growing that the emissions scandal enveloping Volkswagen… So far, the German auto company is facing 34 federal lawsuits.

And as if this wasn’t enough, we also need to take into account that EU-specification cars often differ from their U.S. counterparts – and as yet, we’ve no information to suggest what form those differences take in the engines concerned, and whether they’ll have had an effect on the emissions scandal.

Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn had run the automaker since 2007.

Vehicles that are hugely popular with buyers of affordable family cars are widely affected. Now VW CEO Martin Winterkorn has stepped down even as he’s maintained he had no idea his company was engaged in any wrongdoing.

The Volkswagen group’s emissions scandal discovered in the United States earlier this week has now spread to the rest of Europe, including Denmark.

Lower Saxony has a 20 percent stake in Volkswagen, and Thuemler says many questions must be answered.

What Volkswagen cars are affected?

VW has admitted to using software to get its cars to pass USA emissions tests.

Winterkorn had offered his “deepest apologies” over the revelations on Tuesday. Today, the three represent just a fraction of the betrayal almost 500,000 U.S. buyers feel after news of the deception broke.

In 2012, the WHO’s specialist cancer research agency reclassified diesel engine fumes as carcinogenic, saying they can cause lung cancer and belong in the same potentially deadly category as asbestos, arsenic and mustard gas. I mean, I think it was the right thing for him to do.

Carsten Brzeski, chief economist at ING Germany, said the ongoing refugee crisis and now the “Volkswagen shocker” pose new risks to the German economy. “We need answers by next week”. German rival BMW said on Thursday it had not manipulated emissions tests, after a magazine reported some of its diesel cars were found to exceed emissions standards.

The software employed an algorithm that automatically detects when the vehicle is undergoing pollution tests and changes how the engine performs.

Diesel-powered cars are more expensive to produce than those powered by petrol, or gasoline, and, with profit margins now fragile, the incentives and savings make a big difference to the producers’ cash flow. “This is definitely going to impact our business”.

He said Volkswagen officials “will clear this up”. That includes guaranteeing reimbursement for sales objectives for two quarters whether or not the goals are met and waiving the interest the local franchise normally pays on unsold cars on their sales floor, he said.

The New York attorney-general has announced an investigation into the auto maker. “We pioneered this work back in 1998”.