Switzerland Bans The Sale Of Volkswagen Diesel Models

Switzerland has banned the sale of Volkswagen cars caught up in the emissions scandal.

According to the Zeit newspaper, KBA requested from Volkswagen “to order the necessary measures to ensure that the vehicles in production are brought into conformity with the approved type”. They said this could affect 180,000 vehicles.

On Friday, new CEO Mr. Müller vowed to get to the bottom of the affair that has shattered trust in the company and raised questions about the future of diesel cars for the auto industry in general.

Volkswagen equipped nearly 3 million cars in Germany with the software that allowed it to cheat on emissions tests, the country’s transport minister said on Friday.

“Today we are putting vehicle manufacturers on notice that our testing is going to include additional evaluation and tests designed to look for potential defeat devices”, said Chrisopher Grundler, the director of EPA Office of Transportation and Air Quality.

In a statement, the office said vehicles that have 1.2-litre 1.6-litre and 2.0-litre diesel engines of VW models – including VW’s Audi, Seat and Skoda brands – could be affected.

Volkswagen’s board has named Matthias Mueller, the head of the group’s Porsche unit, to be the new CEO and to lead the world’s top-selling automaker past a growing emissions-rigging scandal.

Apart from the recent controversy the automaker is dealing with, Mueller may face quite a few issues, including managing investigations, expunging corruption, repairing the 11 million affected vehicles, and more.

In particular, that science service had warned that results from laboratory testing could be skewed by companies’ use of so-called “defeat devices”, which turn on emissions controls during tests but turn them off when cars are being driven under normal conditions.

“We need a guarantee that cars of German manufacturers are in line with the norms, without manipulation”, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff Peter Altmaier told Der Tagesspiegel in an interview published on Sunday. This comes after BMW share price fell this morning on reports one of their diesel models exceeded European Union emissions limits 11-times over.

Alongside Mueller’s appointment, the supervisory board also approved changes to the management structure – aimed, the company said, at scaling back complexity and strengthening brands and regions.