VW-toppen vägrar säga när han nåddes av ”dieselgate”
Volkswagens förre vd Matin Winterkorn vägrade under torsdagens utfrågning i förbundsdagen att svara på när han fick reda på att bolaget, som han ledde fram till hösten 2015, har fuskat med utsläppsnivåer på dieselbilar. Det rapporterar Financial Times. I sitt första offentliga framträdande sedan skandalen duckade Winterkorn frågan med motiveringen att han hindras från att svara på grund av den pågående utredningen.
bakgrund
Volkswagens utsläppsskandal
Wikipedia (en)
The Volkswagen emissions scandal (also known as "emissionsgate" or "dieselgate") erupted on 18 September 2015, when the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a notice of violation of the Clean Air Act to German automaker Volkswagen Group after it was found that Volkswagen had intentionally programmed turbocharged direct injection (TDI) diesel engines to activate certain emissions controls only during laboratory emissions testing. The programming caused the vehicles' NOx output to meet US standards during regulatory testing but emit up to 40 times more NOx in real-world driving. Volkswagen deployed this programming in about eleven million cars worldwide, and 500,000 in the United States, during model years 2009 through 2015.
The findings stemmed from a study on emissions discrepancies between European and US models of vehicles commissioned in 2014 by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), summing up the data from three different sources on 15 vehicles. Among the research groups was a group of five scientists at West Virginia University, who detected additional emissions during live road tests on two out of three diesel cars. ICCT also purchased data from two other sources. The new road testing data and the purchased data were generated using Portable Emissions Measurement Systems (PEMS) invented by an EPA engineer in 1995. The findings were provided to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) in May 2014.
Volkswagen became the target of regulatory investigations in multiple countries, and Volkswagen's stock price fell in value by a third in the days immediately after the news. Volkswagen Group CEO Martin Winterkorn resigned, and the head of brand development Heinz-Jakob Neusser, Audi research and development head Ulrich Hackenberg, and Porsche research and development head Wolfgang Hatz were suspended. Volkswagen announced plans to spend US$7.3 billion (later raised to €16.2 billion, US$18.32 billion) on rectifying the emissions issues, and planned to refit the affected vehicles as part of a recall campaign.
The scandal raised awareness over the higher levels of pollution being emitted by all vehicles built by a wide range of car makers, which under real world driving conditions are prone to exceed legal emission limits. A study conducted by ICCT and ADAC showed the biggest deviations from Volvo, Renault, Jeep, Hyundai, Citroën and Fiat, and the diesel market declined.
A discussion was sparked that software-controlled machinery will generally be prone to cheating, and a way out would be to make the software source code accessible to the public.
bakgrund
Martin Winterkorn
Wikipedia (sv)
Martin Winterkorn, född 24 maj 1947, tysk företagsledare och fram till den 23 september 2015 chef för Volkswagen AG. I maj 2007 utsågs Winterkorn till styrelseordförande i den svenska lastbilskoncernen Scania där Volkswagen sedan några år tillbaka är största ägare.
Efter en tid hos Robert Bosch GmbH kom Winterkorn 1981 till Audi. 1993 gick han till Volkswagen. År 2002 blev Winterkorn chef för Audi. 2007 blev han av Ferdinand Piëch utsedd till chef för moderbolaget Volkswagen AG. På grund av avgasmanipulationer på Volkswagens dieselbilar i bland annat USA lämnade Winterkorn sin befattning den 23 september 2015.
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