Volkswagen says it has asked 2,000 Group employees to hold onto data as the continuing maelstrom surrounding its emissions scandal continues to swirl.
The German automaker is battling on a number of fronts to contain the severe damage following the revelation rigged software devices on certain diesel models had provided inaccurate emissions data with the news triggering the possibility of compensation actions.
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“Two thousand Group employees were informed in writing they must make sure they must not lose any data,” Volkswagen chairman, Hans Dieter Pötsch told a packed press conference in the company’s Wolfsburg headquarters.
“I am not saying all of these people are under suspicion – there could be information to understand circumstances better. We still bet only a small number of employees were actively involved in the manipulation.
“We are not talking about a mistake, but a whole chain of mistakes. We still do not know whether the people involved were fully aware of the risks they were taking and of the potential damage they could expose the company to.”
The emissions tests – which have provoked such huge controversy for Volkswagen around the world – will now be undertaken by independent third parties while road evaluating will be based on what Pötsch describes as “real life driving.”
“We need the courage to be more honest,” added the Volkswagen chairman. “Industry discrepancies between real life levels are no longer acceptable – we need to break new ground here.”
Volkswagen says it has involved around “450 external and internal experts involved in the investigations” into emissions test rigging, while admitting pressure to launch ‘clean diesel’ models in the US led to it deliberately designing engines to meet NOx emissions on test, knowing real-world driving would greatly increase tailpipe pollution.
It added it was making good progress with its investigation, vehicle modifications and group restructuring, including management changes.
VW said it had concluded the nitrogen oxide emissions were due to “a chain of errors that were allowed to happen” rather than a single cause, spurred by the decision to launch the ‘clean diesel’ model lines in the US in 2005.
