VW blames emissions scandal on ‘individual misconduct’

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.

Matthias Mueller, Volkswagen’s chief executive, said the investigation has so far found that the engineers kept knowledge of the problem closely held within a small group of employees.

Volkswagen understated carbon dioxide emissions on many fewer vehicles than initially feared, it said on Wednesday, providing some relief to the automaker as it battles a wider diesel emissions scandal affecting up to 11 million cars.

The findings are some of the most detailed that Volkswagen has given publicly since the EPA first revealed that almost 500,000 Volkswagen cars sold in the United States had the software to cover up pollution violations.

In a series of frank admissions, VW said it proved “impossible” for the 2.0-liter diesels in various 2009-2014 VW and Audi TDI models to legally meet the EPA’s stricter nitrogen oxide emissions requirements “within the required time frame and budget”. “As serious as this crisis is, it is also offering us an opportunity to drive much-needed structural change and we will use that opportunity”, Mueller said, via Reuters.

Mueller said Volkswagen’s finances are strong enough, however, that the company does not have to consider selling any units to cope with the costs of the scandal as has been speculated by some. “It was not a one-off error, but an unbroken chain of errors”, said the company’s supervisory board chief Hans Dieter Poetsch.

Poetsch said the external investigation by US law firm Jones Day was making good progress but would need time to reach conclusions because the results will need to stand up in court.

The carmaker announced that it had agreed steps to improve oversight of engine-software development to avoid any future emissions test manipulations. “I will look ahead optimistically and confidently”.

VW, too, launched internal and external inquiries of its own.

“VW officials repeated again and again that regaining the trust of their customers is their No. 1 task, and in that regard, they said that owners of the cars will receive compensation for the loss of resale value of the vehicles”, John says.

“There is no doubt that on the one hand there were weaknesses in our procedures… and on the other hand we had an attitude of employees in middle management that was, as we say today, “non-compliant”, Mueller told Germany’s ARD TV.

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.

Volkswagen has decided that in the future emissions test will be evaluated externally and independently.