Volkswagen admits 'chain of errors'

16:00 • 10.12.15
Economy

The chairman of embattled carmaker Volkswagen says a chain of errors led to the emissions scandal and that its top priority is winning back trust, the BBC reports.

Speaking at a news conference, Hans Dieter Poetsch said: "We are talking here not about a one-off mistake but a chain of errors."

He said VW would be "relentless in seeking to establish who was responsible" for the scandal.

He added that the past two months had been "unprecedented for the VW group".

In September, US regulators found some VW diesel cars had a "defeat device" - or software - to cheat emissions tests.

The company said it had agreed steps to improve supervision of engine software development to prevent future manipulation.

VW's chief executive, Hans Mueller, said it was relatively simple and inexpensive to fix the millions of affected cars, but this had not been possible before, as the technology for the fixes was not available when the cars were built. In any case, the company was unaware at the time that there was a problem.

Volkswagen will in future undertake "real-life" tests, which will be checked by both internal and external third parties.

Mr Poetsch said: "No business justifies crossing legal and ethical boundaries."

He said it was likely that only a limited number of people took part in the deception and said they would not be named as yet, adding that it was impossible to stop misconduct by individuals.

He said, however, that the actions taken by the company would make that much more difficult in future.

US law firm Jones Day is conducting an external investigation into what happened. That, Mr Poetsch said, was making good progress, but would take some time to conclude.

The cheat device affects up to 11 million cars worldwide.

The damage to the company has seen its chief executive resign and about 13% has been knocked off the company's value on the stock markets.

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