Fall-out from the VW scandal continues

The development of an engine is “a complex process that involves interaction between programmers, engine and gear box developers and those who deal with measurements for official tests”, he said, adding that these are tasks in which “a director is not directly involved”.

“The very notion of a carmaker intentionally violating our environmental laws is beyond belief”, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman of the full Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement ahead of Thursday’s hearing.

The VW scandal came to light when researchers from the worldwide Council on Clean Transportation and West Virginia University performed all kinds of tests on VW vehicles, discovering that when the vehicles were on the road, they polluted substantially more than when they were being tested for pollution emissions.

The biggest business crisis in Volkswagen’s 78-year history has wiped more than a third off its share price, forced out its long-time chief executive and sent shock waves through both the global auto industry and the German establishment.

Sigmar Gabriel, who is also Germany’s economy minister, joined a meeting of employee representatives from Germany and beyond as Volkswagen tries to determine who was responsible for the installation of test-cheating software and how quickly up to 11 million vehicles that potentially contain it can be fixed. “We have broken the trust of our customers, dealerships, and employees, as well as the public and regulators”, he said.

Volkswagen told German regulators the parts for 1.6-liter engines that need the fix won’t be available until September 2016, Dobrindt said.

Horn said the company does not yet have an approved recall plan for cars that have the defeat device, and that any fix for customers could take “one or two years” to carry out.

VW spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan told The Associated Press Wednesday that Horn will tell Congress he only learned about the cheating software “over the past several weeks”.

Michael Horn, president and CEO of Volkswagen (VOW3-DE) Group of America, in a hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday, apologized and said that the company is “determined to make things right”. During testing, the software would reduce the vehicles’ emissions levels to allow them to pass testing. It wasn’t immediately clear when VW would refile its application, but Horn’s testimony said the company was working with regulators to get certification. The same cars had met emissions standards when tested in the lab.

VW will sell the Touareg diesel that uses a 3.0L diesel as it isn’t using a defeat device like the 2.0L diesel cars. The United Kingdom will re-test Euro 5 category diesel cars which VW group has confirmed contain the defeat device software.

Horn’s remarks provided no further details and offered House investigators little new information about what led to the scandal and how Volkswagen intends to resolve it, as the company conducts its own external investigation.