Volkswagen names Porsche chief Matthias Mueller as new CEO

The head of German luxury sports vehicle maker Porsche, Matthias Mueller, has been picked to succeed Martin Winterkorn as the chief executive of scandal-battered auto giant Volkswagen, the business daily Handelsblatt reported on September 24. Matthias Mueller, the 62-yead-old head of VW’s Porsche unit, emerged as one of the favorites.

“Rather than delay diesel introduction as others, including Honda and Mazda, did, Volkswagen decided to go ahead, but it appears that it was unable to reach emissions targets as it had hoped”, Nerad said.

Volkswagen appointed a new CEO on Friday at it tried to contain a pollution scandal that continues to land new blows on its reputation.

“These are priorities that should override all other considerations at the moment”.

“My most pressing task will be to restore confidence in the Volkswagen Group – through an unsparing investigation and maximum transparency, but also by drawing the right lessons from the current situation”, Mueller vowed. The company said on Tuesday some 11 million vehicles worldwide were fitted with the software that allowed it to cheat the USA tests.

VW shares, which have bounced back over the past two days from unprecedented losses at the start of the week, hit an intraday high of 117 euros in the first few minutes of trading on the Frankfurt stock exchange, an increase of 4.3 percent from the closing price the day before.

Earlier this month, Volkswagen delivered a presentation to investors at the annual Frankfurt motor show entitled “Stability in Volatile Times”.

Winterkorn, who claimed to know nothing about the cheating, apologized twice and said he was stunned by the scale of the misconduct. “Everyone in Wolfsburg is expecting tough times and job cuts”.

Mueller, the VW group’s former head product strategist, has a majority on the 20-member supervisory panel which is due to meet on Friday, the source said.

Diesel cars are typically more expensive than gas-engine cars yet they appeal to a growing number of American drivers who want better fuel economy and are environmentally conscious, explained Jack Nerad, executive editorial director at Kelley Blue Book.

The company faces fines and class action lawsuits that could cost it billions.

Another top Volkswagen shareholder said it would have been better for Winterkorn to sort out the crisis before handing over to a successor, pointing to how oil company BP managed its recovery from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

France will carry out testing to establish whether vehicles on its roads are equipped with banned software of the kind used by Volkswagen in the United States to trick emissions tests, the country’s environment minister.

The action against Volkswagen in the U.S. began with diesel emissions research by the global Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) in 2013 and 2014 which found a huge discrepancy in real-world performance and official laboratory tests.

European politicians on Wednesday voted to speed up a tightening of testing rules.