AFP, Berlin :
Volkswagen’s new boss began trying to pull the embattled carmaker out of the wreckage of a pollution test rigging scandal Saturday, as the United States and Switzerland halted the sale of the group’s new diesel cars.
The 62-year-old former Porsche chief Matthias Mueller was tapped Friday to replace Martin Winterkorn, who resigned over stunning revelations by US environmental authorities that the German carmaker had fitted some of its diesel cars with software capable of cheating environmental tests.
“Europe’s most important automobile group faces a new beginning” while “the scandal is growing bigger and bigger,” German FAZ daily wrote Saturday.
The scale of VW’s deception became clear when the company admitted that 11 million of its diesel cars are equipped with so-called defeat devices that covertly turn off pollution controls when the car is being driven normally-and back on when tests are being conducted.
The scam could lead to fines worth more than $18 billion (16.1 billion euros), while the German giant has already seen billions of euros wiped off its stocks this week.
Mueller has pledged an “unsparing investigation and maximum transparency” in his bid to restore confidence in the Volkswagen Group.
For now however, the crisis shows no sign of abating with the US environmental regulator refusing to authorise the sale of Volkswagen’s new diesel models.
Volkswagen introduced its new 2016 Passat-which includes a diesel version-in New York on Monday just as the scandal over cheating on pollution controls broke.
Switzerland also temporarily suspended the sale of new Volkswagen diesel-engine models on Friday, potentially affecting some 180,000 vehicles on Swiss roads made by Volkswagen’s Audi, Seat, Skoda and VW brands between 2009 and 2014, the Federal Roads Office said.
France and Britain have announced new checks and the European Union has urged its 28 member states to investigate whether vehicles in their countries complied with pollution rules.
India and Mexico have also opened fraud probes into Volkswagen cars sold there.
On Saturday, European Union sources told AFP that regulators began preparing tightened testing well before the current crisis broke, after researchers found a difference between emission levels recorded in the laboratory and those found in real driving conditions.
Volkswagen’s new boss began trying to pull the embattled carmaker out of the wreckage of a pollution test rigging scandal Saturday, as the United States and Switzerland halted the sale of the group’s new diesel cars.
The 62-year-old former Porsche chief Matthias Mueller was tapped Friday to replace Martin Winterkorn, who resigned over stunning revelations by US environmental authorities that the German carmaker had fitted some of its diesel cars with software capable of cheating environmental tests.
“Europe’s most important automobile group faces a new beginning” while “the scandal is growing bigger and bigger,” German FAZ daily wrote Saturday.
The scale of VW’s deception became clear when the company admitted that 11 million of its diesel cars are equipped with so-called defeat devices that covertly turn off pollution controls when the car is being driven normally-and back on when tests are being conducted.
The scam could lead to fines worth more than $18 billion (16.1 billion euros), while the German giant has already seen billions of euros wiped off its stocks this week.
Mueller has pledged an “unsparing investigation and maximum transparency” in his bid to restore confidence in the Volkswagen Group.
For now however, the crisis shows no sign of abating with the US environmental regulator refusing to authorise the sale of Volkswagen’s new diesel models.
Volkswagen introduced its new 2016 Passat-which includes a diesel version-in New York on Monday just as the scandal over cheating on pollution controls broke.
Switzerland also temporarily suspended the sale of new Volkswagen diesel-engine models on Friday, potentially affecting some 180,000 vehicles on Swiss roads made by Volkswagen’s Audi, Seat, Skoda and VW brands between 2009 and 2014, the Federal Roads Office said.
France and Britain have announced new checks and the European Union has urged its 28 member states to investigate whether vehicles in their countries complied with pollution rules.
India and Mexico have also opened fraud probes into Volkswagen cars sold there.
On Saturday, European Union sources told AFP that regulators began preparing tightened testing well before the current crisis broke, after researchers found a difference between emission levels recorded in the laboratory and those found in real driving conditions.
