VW sales plunge on emissions scandal

But towards the end of October, Volkswagen’s TV advertising began to finally show signs of life and by early November, it had reached just about pre-scandal levels as the company seemingly begins to double down on repairing its image.

The group added that it had notified the relevant authorities of the latest findings along with its importers and trading partners.

“But VW was not brought up in the discussion”. The trade paper implied that VW owner sentiments were decidedly neutral. “ICCT was doing their project independently, as well”, he said.

In the ad, VW Group of America CEO Michael Horn insists his company is working “tirelessly” to establish the most efficient way of dealing with the crisis, with steps at some point expected to involve vehicle recalls for hardware and software adjustments.

In addition to regulators, Volkswagen will meet banks on Monday as part of an effort to assemble as much as €20 billion in short-term bridge financing, people familiar with the matter have said.

“We never designed or conducted any research project to search for defeat devices or any evidence of cheating”. Therefore, in order to prevent such “inconsistencies”, as there are called by VW, EPA will improve its testing procedures of new cars by evaluating them under real-world driving environment, The New York Times reports.

Volkswagen’s 10-month market share narrowed 0.4 percentage point to 25 per cent as the group’s 6.5 per cent sales growth in the period lagged behind the industrywide 8.2 per cent expansion.

“The temporary sales stops for vehicles affected by the diesel issue had an impact on sales”, said Juergen Stackmann, Volkswagen board member responsible for sales. It also admitted understating carbon dioxide emissions and fuel usage for about 800,000 vehicles, including some with gasoline engines.

Deliveries of VW-brand cars slipped 1.3 percent in western Europe compared to a year ago, with weakening demand seen in Germany, Spain and Italy. VW’s top management and labour representatives are in talks to balance spending cuts and future investments as they brace for a bill expected to run into billions or euros in fines, lawsuits and vehicle refit costs.

Its market capitalization has plunged by almost 40 percent since September, when the scandal first broke.