Volkswagen Chief Warns on Existential Threat of Cheating Scandal

Volkswagen Chief Warns on Existential Threat of Cheating Scandal

Volkswagen AG’s designated Chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch warned managers that the diesel-emissions scandal could pose “an existence-threatening crisis for the company,” as it pleaded for public trust with full-page ads in national newspapers.

The German car maker faces a Wednesday deadline to present a plan to fix some 2.8 million vehicles in its home market. Poetsch told managers last week he was certain the Wolfs burg, Germany-based car maker will overcome the crisis with enough effort, according to Welt am Sonntag newspaper. 

Volkswagen and German industry have been rocked by charges, first made by U.S. regulators on Sept. 18, that the car maker had used software to hoodwink regulators about the true emissions of its diesel cars for years. As owners of 11 million affected cars across the globe, regulators and investors await answers, the crisis has wiped out almost 30 billion euros ($34 billion) of the company’s value.

As Volkswagen’s new chief executive officer, Matthias Mueller, vows to repair the damage, the car maker undertook a media campaign that included a full-page meaculpa advertisement published in major German newspapers to mark the 25th anniversary of the country’s reunification.

Instead of lauding a quarter century of German unity, the company used fine print on a broad white field to say it would dispense with celebratory expressions, instead assuring the public that it will resolve the crisis.

“We just want to say one thing: We will do everything to win back your trust,” the car maker said in the ad Sunday.

Merkel Statement

After mostly remaining silent on the cheating scandal, Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday called the disclosure by Germany’s largest car maker “a dramatic event” and said Volkswagen must clarify the affair swiftly. She ruled out a longer-term impact on the country’s industry.

“I believe that the reputation of German industry, the trust in Germany as a business location, hasn’t been so shaken that we won’t continue to be seen as a good business location,” Merkel told Deutschlandfunk radio in an interview.

An internal investigation has already yielded several engineers who admitted to installing the fraudulent software in 2008 for EA 189 diesel-motor models, Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported Sunday. The decision for the regulatory work-around came as project engineers determined there was no way to meet both emissions standards and cost controls, a jam that threatened to bring the marquee project to a halt, Bild said.

The result was a so-called defeat device that disengaged emissions controls when an auto wasn’t being tested, breaching emissions rules and prompting a raft of government investigations and lawsuits since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited the violations last month.

新增說明文字

Vocabulary

hoodwink 蒙蔽
emission 排放
executive 行政人員
reunification 重新統一
disclosure 洩漏
swiftly 如飛
diesel 柴油機
disengage 解開
breach 突破口
prompt 提示