Accusation that VW lied about emissions scandal proven false
The previous allegations regarding VW lying about the details of the emissions scandal appear to have been proven largely unfounded.
“Just a month after questions relating to the CO2 figures measured on some of the group’s models arose, Volkswagen has largely concluded the clarification of the matter,”
the company said in a statement.
“Following extensive internal investigations and measurement checks, it is now clear that almost all of these model variants do correspond to the CO2 figures originally determined,”
the statement said.
“This means that these vehicles can be marketed and sold without any limitations. The suspicion that the fuel consumption figures of current production vehicles had been unlawfully changed was not confirmed,” VW said.
VW are currently involved in a massive emissions scandal that initially focused on the defeat devices (complicated software built into diesel engines to skew results of emissions tests).
VW admits to fitting 11 million diesel engines worldwide with these defeat devices, prompting both regulatory and criminal investigations in a range of different countries.
The emissions scandal led to VW performing an internal probe, after which they revealed that the results showed inconsistencies in the emissions testing on its petrol engines as well.
Stating on 3 November that the 1.4, 1.6 and 2.0 litre motors of VW, Skoda, Audi and Seat vehicles were affected and these cars had been found to be releasing more CO2 than previous tests had shown.
Initially, the group had said that around 800 000 vehicles were under suspicion.
But the inconsistencies found in the figures were for only nine model variants and “amounted to a few grammes of CO2 on average.”
And here, only around 36 000 vehicles were actually concerned, lessening the impact of the emissions scandal.
The affair would therefore have no consequences for customers, VW continued.
“Customers’ real-world consumption figures do not change and neither are any technical vehicle modifications necessary. Against this background, the negative impact on earnings of 2.0 billion euros that was originally expected has not been confirmed. Whether we will have a minor economic impact, depends on the results of the remeasurement exercise,” VW said.