Volkswagen group sales 2.2 percent lower in November

Matthias Mueller, chief executive officer of Volkswagen AG, and former chief executive of Porsche, told a news conference in Wolfsburg, Germany, on December 10 the company was committed to keeping its 12 brands.

In September, US regulators found that some VW diesel cars had a “defeat device” – or software – to cheat emissions tests. Diesels have never been big sellers in the USA, but VW believed the promise of good fuel economy and low emissions would win over eco-conscious buyers. Co-operation with those authorities was described as “excellent”.

All right. We have an update this morning on that Volkswagen emissions scandal. “They thought that would put customers off”. The automaker has estimated the scandal would cost 6.7 billion euros, though analysts expect that figure to ultimately be much higher. “I will look ahead optimistically and confidently”.

On discovering the faults VW had taken the first step of suspending nine managers involved in the manipulation, chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch saying that “No business transaction justifies overstepping legal and ethical bounds”, and promising that the investigation will be pursued to a full conclusion. “Even though we can not prevent misconduct by individuals once and for all, in future it will be very hard to bypass our processes”. Thousands of VW buyers have realized they are victims of fraud and have chose to join a class action lawsuit against VW. He said there are so far no indications that board members were directly involved, but the company’s probe is ongoing and broad.

Mueller said the crisis was an opportunity for VW to make long-needed structural changes.

“Temporary jobs are a tool of ensuring flexibility, that is not new”, he said. Details would be drawn up in the first quarter of next year and it would be in place across the group by early 2017. Mueller said Thursday that he was optimistic a technical solution would be announced in the coming days.

However, as 2015 becomes 2016, the investigation has spread from the USA to Europe and beyond, VW has admitted systematic failings in its attempts to meet targets, and vehicle drivers on both sides of the Atlantic have started to question the validity of emissions and fuel consumption figures no matter what they are driving.

Compounding the problem is that most of the cars sold in the United States are equipped with older technology that does not use urea to treat the emissions and will therefore be more hard to bring up to standard. “It proves not to have been a one-time error, but rather a chain of errors that were allowed to happen”, Potsch said.

According to local media reports, the plea was filed by residents of the Indian capital New Delhi – a city that now holds the notorious distinction of being the most polluted in the world – who allege that the company was “polluting the environment in blatant disregard to regulations (sic)”.