BERLIN: Volkswagen has agreed to repair up to 11 million vehicles and revise the namesake brand following the scandal over its rigging of emissions tests, a move which has been analysed to cost more than $6.5 billion to the company.
Chief Executive Volkswagen Matthias Mueller said the German carmaker would tell customers in the coming days they would need to have diesel vehicles with illegal software refitted.
Europe’s biggest carmaker has admitted cheating in diesel emissions tests in the United States. Germany’s transport minister says it also manipulated them in Europe, where Volkswagen sells about 40 percent of its vehicles.
The company is under huge pressure to address a crisis that has wiped more than a third off its market value, sent shock waves through the global car market and could harm Germany’s economy.
“We are facing a long trudge and a lot of hard work,” Mueller told a closed-door gathering of about 1,000 top managers at Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg headquarters.
Volkswagen did not say how the planned refit would make cars with the “cheat” software comply with regulations, or how this might affect vehicles’ mileage or efficiency, which are important considerations for customers. It said it would submit the details to Germany’s KBA watchdog next month.
Manipulating emissions results allowed Volkswagen to keep down engine costs in a “clean diesel” strategy that was popular in Europe and at the heart of a drive to improve U.S. results.
