Germany's Transportation Chief Wants To Retest Every Volkswagen Now

by Aaron Cole

Updated: December 30th, 2020 Published: November 4th, 2015

germany s transportation chief wants to retest every volkswagen now

German authorities said Wednesday that they would retest all Volkswagen cars — regardless of engine type or brand — for emissions compliance, Reuters reported.

German transportation minister Alexander Dobrindt expressed his “irritation” with the automaker that more cars were being added to the deepening scandal. On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency notified the automaker that some of its 3-liter diesel models may contain an illegal “defeat device” to fool emissions tests.

Volkswagen denied the allegations by the EPA that its 3-liter diesel models contained illegal software. On Wednesday, Audi and Porsche issued stop sales for their cars that contained the engine. As of Wednesday afternoon, Volkswagen hadn’t yet pulled the Touareg TDI — which the EPA alleged polluted up to nine times the legal limit of nitrogen oxides — from its online configurator.

The growing list of cars affected by Volkswagen’s massive emissions scandal is brutally punishing the company’s balance sheet. The company’s stock sank 10 percent Wednesday on the latest news. Volkswagen’s stock has erased roughly 60 percent of its value since its 1-year high in March.

When the company announced Monday that 800,000 additional cars may pollute more carbon dioxide than the automaker admitted, Volkswagen said that could cost them $2.1 billion alone. So far, the company has set aside more than $7 billion to pay for its diesel scandal, but analysts suggest that will be far from enough to pay for the flap.

“These new claims pose further challenges to Volkswagen’s financial flexibility and competitive position, and heighten Moody’s concerns about Volkswagen’s internal control and governance issues, thus further weakening its rating profile,” Yasmina Serghini, Moody’s lead analyst for VW, told Reuters.

#Audi #Co2 #Diesel #Emissions #EmissionsRegulations #EmissionsTesting #Europe #Gas #Germany #Petrol #Porsche #Volkswagen #VwDieselScandal

Aaron Cole

More by Aaron Cole

Comments

Join the conversation

2 of 22 comments

APaGttH on Nov 04, 2015

Say what your u want about GM, they handled things a lot better. VAG needs to come clean or they are sunk.

Like Reply
Dusterdude on Nov 04, 2015

I'm surprised at the depth of the past deception. I worked for an alternate German automaker for 3 years (from 2008 - 2011) and was amazed at how they constantly preached "transparency", and they actually did "walk the talk", with lots of "checks and balances".. My presumption at the time was that other German OEM's operated in a similar fashion -- boy was that perception wrong !

Like Reply

Recent Comments

Varezhka I have still yet to see a Malibu on the road that didn't have a rental sticker. So yeah, GM probably lost money on every one they sold but kept it to boost their CAFE numbers.I'm personally happy that I no longer have to dread being "upgraded" to a Maxima or a Malibu anymore. And thankfully Altima is also on its way out.
Tassos Under incompetent, affirmative action hire Mary Barra, GM has been shooting itself in the foot on a daily basis.Whether the Malibu cancellation has been one of these shootings is NOT obvious at all.GM should be run as a PROFITABLE BUSINESS and NOT as an outfit that satisfies everybody and his mother in law's pet preferences.IF the Malibu was UNPROFITABLE, it SHOULD be canceled.More generally, if its SEGMENT is Unprofitable, and HALF the makers cancel their midsize sedans, not only will it lead to the SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST ones, but the survivors will obviously be more profitable if the LOSERS were kept being produced and the SMALL PIE of midsize sedans would yield slim pickings for every participant.SO NO, I APPROVE of the demise of the unprofitable Malibu, and hope Nissan does the same to the Altima, Hyundai with the SOnata, Mazda with the Mazda 6, and as many others as it takes to make the REMAINING players, like the Excellent, sporty Accord and the Bulletproof Reliable, cheap to maintain CAMRY, more profitable and affordable.
GregLocock Car companies can only really sell cars that people who are new car buyers will pay a profitable price for. As it turns out fewer and fewer new car buyers want sedans. Large sedans can be nice to drive, certainly, but the number of new car buyers (the only ones that matter in this discussion) are prepared to sacrifice steering and handling for more obvious things like passenger and cargo space, or even some attempt at off roading. We know US new car buyers don't really care about handling because they fell for FWD in large cars.
Slavuta Why is everybody sweating? Like sedans? - go buy one. Better - 2. Let CRV/RAV rust on the dealer lot. I have 3 sedans on the driveway. My neighbor - 2. Neighbors on each of our other side - 8 SUVs.
Theflyersfan With sedans, especially, I wonder how many of those sales are to rental fleets. With the exception of the Civic and Accord, there are still rows of sedans mixed in with the RAV4s at every airport rental lot. I doubt the breakdown in sales is publicly published, so who knows... GM isn't out of the sedan business - Cadillac exists and I can't believe I'm typing this but they are actually decent - and I think they are making a huge mistake, especially if there's an extended oil price hike (cough...Iran...cough) and people want smaller and hybrids. But if one is only tied to the quarterly shareholder reports and not trends and the big picture, bad decisions like this get made.