Top VW exec warns emissions crisis could kill company

The new chairman of Volkswagen Group has reportedly said the emissions scandal is a threat to the company’s viability.

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The beleaguered Volkswagen group has said around 11 million of its cars sold worldwide were outfitted with the cheating software.

In Berlin on Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Volkswagen’s emissions-rigging scandal a “far-reaching event” and demanded the world’s largest automaker quickly investigate it, according to The Associated Press.

At an internal company meeting last week at the VW headquarters in Wolfsburg, Mr Poetsch described the situation as an “existence-threatening crisis for the company” albeit a surmountable one, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported.

The result was a so-called defeat device that disengaged emissions controls when an auto wasn’t being tested, breaching emissions rules and prompting a raft of government investigations and lawsuits since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited the violations last month.

Rather than stop production of the engine and throw out years of work and investment, managers made a decision to cheat, the sources said, confirming a report in Bild am Sonntag, a German newspaper. “Still, I think Volkswagen is a strong company that has every chance to overcome the crisis”.

Sources close to the board have said the supervisory board was looking at ways to make savings to try to avoid a downgrade in the company’s credit ratings, which would lead to higher borrowing costs.

A survey by German market research firm Puls showed 41 per cent of consumers see the brand as damaged for the long term, while 11 per cent say they no longer want to buy a VW, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported.

Two top Volkswagen engineers who found they couldn’t deliver as promised a clean diesel engine that could meet pollution standards in the United States and other countries are at the center of the probe into the installation of the software, which was created to fool regulators, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Picture: AFP PHOTO/PATRIK STOLLARZ.