Emissions scandal result of series of errors from 2005, says Volkswagen

The company will also form a new committee to authorize new emissions software to avoid future violations. He also said the automaker was in regular contact with US environmental authorities but did not elaborate on the steps VW had proposed.

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.

‘The last two and a half months have been unprecedented for the VW group. “I will look ahead optimistically and confidently”.

Mr Poetsch said: “No business justifies crossing legal and ethical boundaries”. “Even though we can not prevent misconduct by individuals once and for all, in the future it will be very hard to bypass our processes”.

“We still believe that only a comparatively small number of employees was actually actively involved in the manipulations”.

Volkswagen has placed the emission scandal, which has all but ruined the firm’s reputation, at the feet of a poor company mindset and a “chain of mistakes” in company culture.

Poetsch said investigations found that the emissions cheating happened because of three factors. Later on, exhaust-gas treatments to reduce nitrogen oxide became available, but VW says it didn’t use them to their full extent. The executive board has brought on six new members and top management had been changed at seven of the automaker’s 12 brands. The planned new company structure is aimed at giving more power to regional divisions and brands. Details would be drawn up in the first quarter of next year and it would be in place across the group by early 2017.

The scandal broke when Volkswagen was forced to admit that it had installed emission-cheating software in 11 million diesel engines worldwide.

The vehicle maker said 36,000 cars were affected and has confirmed that no Australian cars were affected by the emissions sandal. Mueller and Poetsch said it was still too soon to pinpoint exactly who were the masterminds behind the scam.

‘Although the current situation is serious, this company will not be broken by it’.

The damage to the company has seen its chief executive resign and about 13% has been knocked off the company’s value on the stock markets. Shares in Volkswagen were 1.5 percent down on Thursday afternoon.