Volkswagen says core brand’s sales 2.4 pct lower in November

“They said it started with the decision to launch this major diesel vehicle campaign in the U.S. But VW developers couldn’t figure how to meet U.S. emissions standards within the timeline and budget they’d been given, so they developed the software defeat device”.

Mueller also said he wanted to change the company’s culture so that there was better communication among employees and more willingness to discuss problems.

“We are not talking about a one-off mistake, but a whole chain of mistakes that was not interrupted at any point along the time line”, he told reporters at Volkswagen headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany.

No technical modifications to vehicles will be needed, so that cost “has not been confirmed”, Volkswagen said Wednesday. Instead, beginning with the 2009 model year, Volkswagen sold cars in the United States that had 2-litre diesel motors equipped with so-called lean NOX traps.

“We have to understand how this came about”, Potsch said.

The chairman said that VW “still does not know if the people involved were aware of the risks they were taking and the potential damage to which they could expose VW”. It said that nine people had been suspended as a result of the scandal, one more than had previously been disclosed.

German carmaker Volkswagen on Thursday revealed that the emission test scandal was largely attributed to misconduct of some employees.

He said the investigation had sifted through vast tracts of data equivalent to 50 million books and conducted 87 extensive interviews.

The company continues to maintain that only a small group of people were actively involved in designing and installing software that allowed diesel vehicles to cheat on emissions tests.

Mueller said that the scandal had so far not caused the massive slump in business that some had feared earlier. “Overall, the situation is not dramatic, but, as was to be expected, it’s tense”, said Mueller. Sales in the US fell almost 25 per cent in November, the first month to show the full impact of the scandal. Figures for the European Union are due next week.

Mueller said it was relatively simple and low-priced to fix the affected cars, and he was often asked why they had not done so in the first place.

He suggested that the company was not considering any cuts to full-time jobs, but that it might have to shed some temporary workers.

He said VW was working on a new structure to give more power to its regional divisions and brands. Volkswagen said it would correct those procedures.

But executives were still unable to estimate the scandal’s legal costs, for which they had so far made no provisions.

On Thursday, Volkswagen’s preference shares were up 0.7 percent at 132.70 euros. He said Volkswagen would go beyond lab tests – so far the norm in the USA and Europe – had proved too easy to cheat. He said future Volkswagen emissions testing will be verified by third parties, and that it will also introduce “universal real-life tests in on-road driving”, The Associated Press reports.