Scandal-hit Volkswagen brand sees 2015 sales fall 4.8 pct

Herbert Diess, chairman of Volkswagen Passenger Cars’ board, speaks during a keynote address at the 2016 CES trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada, January 5, 2016.

Mr. Müller has promised full disclosure, and this week the company said again it is cooperating fully and constructively with USA officials.

NY is one of 46 states that are conducting an investigation into VW’s emissions deception and is one of the six states leading the probe.

But getting a fix approved by regulators in the U.S. to bring the offending cars in line with the rules has proved much more hard for Volkswagen due to stricter rules about NOx emissions in the US. In the decades since, every one of the verdicts delivered by juries in three separate trials was reversed at least twice by… This week, the U.S. Justice Department sued the automaker for violating federal regulations, and the Environmental Protection Agency has yet to approve fixes for almost 570,000 diesel vehicles registered in the U.S.

The company admitted in November a year ago that millions of cars worldwide had been equipped with software that made them flawless to cheat at pollution tests.

At the CES show this week VW unveiled its plans for BUDD-e the first concept vehicle based on the new MEB Modular Electric Drive Kit.

The remaining vehicles would need significant upgrades to their emissions systems to try to bring them into compliance with US emissions laws, the newspaper says.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman told the New York Times that Volkswagen had been refusing to turn over internal emails and other communications among executives that could have shed more light on the company’s illegal use of emissions-test defeat devices in hundreds of thousands of its diesel-engined cars.

Diess apologized for the scandal.

“We greatly appreciate their help, and I am optimistic that we will gain their approval within the coming weeks and months”, he said.

Herbert Diess said that diesels will continue to have a role in Volkswagen’s USA lineup because, with the latest emissions technologies, diesels can be clean.

Assistant attorney general, “John Cruden”, head of the department’s Environment and Natural resources division said that the U.S. will be unflinching in ensuring Volkswagen will rectify the violations of our nation’s clean air laws. In addition, the firm and its directors could face criminal charges; all added to private class-action lawsuits filed by VW owners.

Sales at VW’s namesake brand fell 4.8pc a year ago to 5.82m cars.