GERMAN PROSECUTORS BACK OFF PROBE OF FORMER VW CEO DR. MARTIN WINTERKORN
Members of Volkswagen's supervisory board announced today that theinvestigation into the emissions-cheating software installed in some 11 million vehicles will take months, according to a report from Reuters.
However, the board plans to inform Volkswagen AG vehicle owners of potential technical solutions for the affected cars next week -- at least for the German-market cars.
Volkswagen had been given a deadline of Oct. 7 by the German government to announce how they plan to remedy the software that has been installed in diesel cars spanning the Volkswagen, Audi, Skoda and Seat brands. The company has been working on coming up for a fix since the scandal broke, though it was clear early on that different vehicles will require different solutions, even among cars from the same brand in one given market. Experts agree that a potential fix would include an alteration of engine software, though it remains to be seen if additional hardware would have to be introduced to cars to cope with actual emissions requirements to avoid a loss in performance.
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"Volkswagen is committed to finding a remedy as soon as possible" VW U.S. CEO Michael Horn said in a message to VW owners earlier in the week. "We want to assure customers and owners of these models that their automobiles are safe to drive, and we are working to develop a remedy that will meet the expectations of the government agencies.
"Owners of these vehicles do not need to take any action at this time. Once we have information regarding a remedy, consumers will be notified."
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Meanwhile, German prosecutors have been forced to backtrack in their investigation of former VW CEO Dr. Martin Winterkorn, according to a report from Bloomberg. Winterkorn had earlier been named as the focus of a fraud investigation by prosecutors in Lower Saxony. The prosecutor's office backed off a statement it produced earlier in the week regarding Winterkorn's role in the probe, saying that there must be "concrete facts" before accusations of fraud are made.
Bloomberg notes that this apparent U-turn highlights the pressure that authorities in Germany are under to find the party responsible for ordering the creation of the emissions-cheating software. Bloomberg cites financial experts in Germany as indicating that Winterkorn had been prejudged by the prosecutor's office in Lower Saxony. A number of analysts have pointed out that the software was likely created before Winterkorn was appointed to head the company, however, and that he was not in a position to have known about powertrain certification for the U.S. market at the time the software is thought to have been introduced to the engines.
發表於 2015-10-1 21:58
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