U.S. regulator deepens crisis at VW in emissions probe

The EPA and the California Air Resources Board said the German automaker acknowledged that the software was on Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche vehicles with 3-liter engines going back to the 2009 model year.

Volkswagen is struggling to cope with the biggest crisis of its history over its admission in September that it had fitted more than 11 million vehicles worldwide with devices created to cheat pollution tests.

Chief Executive Officer Matthias Mueller told a press conference in Wolfsburg: “What we definitely won’t do is make cuts at the expense of our future”.

The illicit software basically recognizes when a vehicle is undergoing an emissions tests and activites pollution-control equipment that is automatically turned off when the test is ended.

Things look as though they might get a whole lot worse for Volkswagen over the latest emissions news, as it reignites concerns for older models with larger diesel engines. In the third quarter, it set aside 6.7 billion euros to pay for the diesel recalls, noting that the full cost will probably be higher.

The disclosure widens the VW scandal, which had previously focused mainly on smaller-engined, mass-market cars, and raised the possibility that engineers at both the Audi and VW brands could have been involved in separate emissions schemes.

“We will examine all our investments and all our spending”.

Stertz said the software is legal in Europe, and it’s not the same as a device that enabled four-cylinder VW diesel engines to deliberately cheat on emissions tests. “It is crucial that whatever action VW takes to fix these cars also protects the consumer”.

He said construction of a planned new design centre in VW’s home town of Wolfsburg was being put on hold, saving about 100 million euros, while the construction of a paint shop in Mexico was under review. In the meeting, Audi told regulators the Q7 from years 2009 to 2012 had the same technology, she said.

The carmaker has made a decision to cancel or postpone investments that aren’t “absolutely necessary”, Mueller said. Democratic Senators Edward Markey of MA and Richard Blumenthal of CT have called that amount a “pittance” and are calling on VW to buy back the affected vehicles.

Jörg Hofmann, First Chairman of IG Metall, and Johan Järvklo, Representative of the Swedish Metal Workers’ Union at Scania, were appointed members of the Supervisory Board of Volkswagen AG by Braunschweig Local Court. Volkswagen hasn’t yet announced how exactly it will handle this scandal in terms of recalls.