Volkswagen’s US boss apologises for emissions scandal

Volkswagen told United States authorities on 3 September this year about the “defeat device” in emissions software in diesel vehicles for the model years 2009 to 2015.

Horn also cleared other senior officials of the German automaker of wrongdoing, saying that the trickery was “not a corporate decision” and that “a couple of software engineers… put this in for whatever reason”. But it would take more than one year to fix majority because it involves more than a simple software adjustment.

Nearly half of the Volkswagen cars in Europe affected by the diesel emissions scandal require major hardware changes – including the installation of new parts – in order to meet pollution standards. That’s raising questions about whether a “defeat device” similar to that in earlier models is also in the new cars.

German prosecutors last week launched an investigation to determine who was responsible for suspected fraud committed through the sale of vehicles with manipulated emissions data. “It goes way, way higher than that”.

Needless to say, the subcommittee’s members weren’t buying his explanation, with representative Chris Collins (R., N.Y.) calling it “inadequate” and “a sign of arrogance”, scolding Horn by telling him that the automaker’s leadership is either “incompetent” or “complicit in a massive coverup”.

The congressmen repeatedly pressed Horn to explain who had made the decision to cheat emissions exams and how Volkswagen could allow such widespread deception. “Personally, no. I’m not an engineer”, he said. And I had no indication whatsoever that a defeat device could have been in our cars’.

The VW diesel emissions scandal is getting messier and messier, and today German law enforcement became directly involved. He added that “there might be a slight impact on their performance”. “If they want it, every VW clean diesel owner should be able to get their money back”, she said. Nobody could make any sense of how that could be. In the meantime, the Environmental Protection Agency has said the vehicles are safe and legal to drive.

Volkswagen would deliver the software to the EPA and the California Air Resources Board, following which the two regulators will “begin evaluating the proposed software”, the EPA said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

“We’ll hear that the use of defeat devices are incompatible with Volkswagen’s corporate culture”, said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Il).

The announcement has come one day after the testimony from Volkswagen’s USA chief Michael Horn in front of the Energy and Commerce Committee of the US Congress.