Volkswagen: Probes to last ‘longer than expected’

German vehicle maker Volkswagen’s logo adorns the wall at a northern Virginia dealership in the United States on Tuesday.

Through the end of August sales of VW/Audi cars accounted for about 15% of all US sales, but as the company has attempted to recover from ever-dwindling USA sales, the diesel cars were making a few inroads with American buyers.

Under the action plan, Volkswagen and the other Group brands whose vehicles are affected will present the technical solutions and measures to the responsible authorities in October. Romania also warned VW of paying more taxes.

Since the revelations on September 18, the VW share has seen almost 40% of its value go up in smoke.

It is thought that by modifying the engines, it will make the cars “cleaner”, but more expensive to run, potentially leaving motorists out of pocket by £50 a year.

These are vehicles sold through the Volkswagen authorised dealer network in Ireland. Observers and analysts expected a drop in view of the global impact of the scandal. He was replaced by Matthias Mueller to help the automaker recover from the scandal. It said that an investigation into the firm’s conduct carried out by law firm Jones Day will take “at least several months” and would not be completed for the meeting.

The sources said the board was anxious that, without boosting its finances, its credit ratings might be downgraded, leading to higher borrowing costs. It had failed to distinguish between the process of opening a case file, and the launch of a formal preliminary investigation following confirmation of initial grounds for suspicion.

For the press statement, check it out after the jump.

No specific individuals were targeted so far, the prosecutors said, apologising for any “confusion”.

On Thursday, however, they said there had been a “misunderstanding” by a few and said they did not now have any evidence against Winterkorn, but that he had been named in the investigation as the head of Volkswagen.

Nevertheless, VW is stepping up its efforts to find the culprits.

Olaf Lies told the BBC’s Newsnight programme: “Those people who allowed this to happen, or who made the decision to install this software – they acted criminally. They must take personal responsibility”.

“Under my leadership, Volkswagen will do everything it can to develop and implement the most stringent compliance and governance standards in our industry“.