The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have filed a civil complaint against Volkswagen and Martin Winterkorn, its former CEO, for their role in issuing bonds while the company was trying to conceal the fact it had been selling vehicles with diesel emissions many times above legal levels...
Audi chairman Bram Schot has publicly apologised for the company’s involvement in the “dieselgate” scandal that saw 11 million Volkswagen and Audi cars caught out cheating emissions regulations in the US and Europe – and has vowed that it will never happen again...
A US federal grand jury last week indicted four senior managers — Richard Bauder, Axel Eiser, Stefan Knirsch and Carsten Nagel — for their role in developing and covering up the emissions testing defeat device fitted to the Audi-designed 3.0-litre turbo-diesel V6 engine. All four held senior management positions at Audi's diesel design centres in Neckarsulm and Ingolstadt, Germany...
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) will pay out roughly US$800 million ($1.1 billion) in fines, fixes and compensation to settle claims some of its diesel engines cheated their way past emissions regulations. The company had been accused of using an emissions-testing defeat device, like the one used employed by the Volkswagen Group in its Dieselgate engines, which could detect when a car was undergoing bench-testing and alter its operation to emit a legal quantity of pollutants...
Audi has formally appointed Bram Schot as permanent CEO, a role he was given on an interim-basis after the arrest of previous CEO Rupert Stadler. In announcing the appointment, Herbert Diess, head of the Volkswagen Group, said Schot had done a "convincing job in recent months... [in] pushing forward with the cultural change in his team and is effectively tackling the current challenges"...
At Volkswagen Group, the next generation of flexible component sets will be the last engineered for internal combustion engines. According to Automotive News, Michael Jost, head of strategy for the Volkswagen brand, told an industry conference in Germany “our colleagues are working on the last platform for vehicles that aren’t CO2 neutral"...
Rupert Stadler, ex-chief executive of Audi, has been released from custody, according to a new report from Reuters. The news outlet quotes a Munich court, which confirmed the executive was released on Tuesday. He was arrested in June, after prosecutors raised concerns he was trying to tamper with the ongoing Dieselgate investigation...
British-based carmaker Jaguar Land Rover will this month stop the production lines at its plant in Solihull for two weeks, in response to weakening demand for their vehicles in China. Like most prestige carmakers operating in China, Jaguar Land Rover last month suffered a 46.2 per cent sales dive in its single largest market, and where it owns a major factory used to produce cars with Chery...
Audi has been fined €800 million ($1.3 billion) for regulatory breaches in relation the V6 and V8 turbo-diesel engines engulfed in the Dieselgate emissions scandal. The fine was handed down via an administrative order from the Munich public prosecutors office. In a statement, Audi says it "accepts the fine, and, by doing so, admits its responsibility"...
German manufacturer Opel has had its Russelsheim and Kaiserslautern operations searched by German prosecutors this week, as part of an investigation into potential emissions cheating with diesel vehicles...
More details are starting emerge about Audi and its use of fake and duplicate VINs (vehicle identification numbers) in South Korea. In a surprise to no-one, it's Dieselgate-related. In August 2017 it was revealed Audi used duplicate VINs on thousands of cars exported to China, South Korea, and Japan – quite why it had done so wasn't clear, though...
Rupert Stadler, the former Audi CEO who was arrested earlier this year for his alleged role in the Dieselgate emissions cheating affair, has been removed from the boards of both Audi and its parent the Volkswagen Group. In a statement released on the first day of the Paris motor show, the automaker announced Stadler had terminated his contract with "immediate effect" meaning he will "no longer work for the Volkswagen Group"...
Porsche has officially ended production of its diesel vehicles, instead shifting its focus to e-mobility. Using an official statement published on the company media website, Porsche CEO, Oliver Blume, said the company wasn't "demonising" what is an "important propulsion technology", but admitted it would have a "diesel-free" future...
Former Volkswagen CEO, Martin Winterkorn, and Bosch CEO, Volkmar Denner, are among witnesses refusing to testify in a trial against Porsche SE, the main shareholder of Volkswagen Group. The presiding judge of the regional court in Stuttgart, Fabian Richter Reuschle, said of the decision: “we have to accept that we cannot force them to incriminate themselves," according to reporting from Automotive News...
Recently-unsealed court filings are giving us a better insight into who at Volkswagen knew about what (and when they knew it) in the long-running Dieselgate emissions cheating saga. Recently unsealed documents, reported by Der Spiegel and filed by the Braunschweig prosecutor's office, say Martin Winterkorn, Volkswagen Group CEO at the time, and Herbert Diess, current VW Group CEO and then-head of the Volkswagen brand, were present at a meeting about the cheating on July 27, 2015...
FEDERO, the Federal Roads Office in Switzerland, will stop some diesel Audi A6/A7, Mercedes-Benz Vito, Porsche Macan and Porsche Cayenne models fitted with 'defeat devices' from being registered. A release from the body said any vehicles imported after tomorrow won't be road register-able until they have the 'defeat device' removed, while vehicles already in the country will need to be tweaked to meet emissions standards...
The Munich appeals court has rejected a bid by Rupert Stadler, former CEO of Audi, to regain his freedom, over fears he may collude or otherwise try to obstruct justice. A statement released by the court, and seen by Reuters, says: "The Chamber emphasises that danger of obstructing justice remains. The release of the accused from custody was therefore rejected...
In one of the quirks of its Dieselgate settlement, Volkswagen has begun rolling out an advertising campaign promoting its competitors. In the just-released advertisement, a driver stops at a traffic light in his poorly-disguised Subaru Outback, with The Flintstones theme song...
Ex-Volkswagen, Porsche and Audi research and development chief, Wolfgang Hatz, has been released from pre-trial detention under a strict set of conditions designed to stop him fleeing Germany. According to reports in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the ex-engine boss was bailed for €3 million ($4.7 million) earlier this week...
Audi CEO, Rupert Stadler, has been detained by German police over matters relating to the (seemingly never-ending) Dieselgate saga. Munich police cited the potential for "evidence suppression" as the reason for his arrest, just a week after he was added to a list of around 20 Volkswagen Group executives being investigated for fraud in relation to the diesel emissions cheating scandal...
