WOLFSBURG,
Germany -- Volkswagen on Friday appointed Matthias Mueller, the head of its
Porsche unit, as its new chief executive, asking him to lead a recovery from an
emissions cheating scandal that its chairman described as a "moral and
political disaster."
The
62-year-old Mueller, speaking at a news conference at company headquarters in
Wolfsburg on Friday, said his first priority would be to win back trust
following a plunge in VW stock and the resignation of long-time CEO Martin
Winterkorn earlier this week.
"Under
my leadership, Volkswagen will do all it can to develop and implement the
strictest compliance and governance standards in the whole industry,"
Mueller said.
Acting
Chairman Berthold Huber made an apology to "our customers, the public,
authorities and investors" and asked them to give Volkswagen a chance to
make good on the damage from the emissions scandal.
"I
want to be very clear, the manipulation of tests for diesel engines is a moral
and political disaster," Huber said. "The illegal behavior of
developers and technicians in the development of engines has shocked Volkswagen
as much as it has the public."
Volkswagen's
supervisory board appointed Mueller, a longtime company insider, at a daylong
meeting on Friday. His predecessor, Winterkorn, resigned on Wednesday, taking
responsibility for the car emissions scandal in the U.S. but saying he wasn't
aware of any wrongdoing on his part.
Huber
said a number of employees had been put on leave until the details of the
emissions cheating were cleared up. The company later announced that it would
shrink its management board and get rid of the position of production chief.
The
company had been expected to sack several senior officials, but at least one of
those reported as being on his way out will stay with Volkswagen. While the
automaker said it will reorganize its North America business under Winfried
Vahland, until now chairman of the board of directors at Skoda, it said Michael
Horn will remain as president and CEO of Volkswagen Group of America.
It was
not immediately clear whether other executives expected to be fired at Friday's
meeing, inluding the research and development chiefs at VW and Audi, would keep
their jobs as well.
An EPA complaint last
week accused Volkswagen of surreptitiously equipping diesel vehicles with
software designed to detect when they were undergoing emissions testing. During
that time, the device turned on full emissions control systems. After the test
was over, the controls were turned off, allowing the cars to pollute up to 40
times the allowable levels, according to the complaint, which was accompanied
by an order to recall nearly 500,000 diesel vehicles sold in the U.S.
Volkswagen
has said some 11 million cars worldwide have the software. The company now
faces a mountain of difficulties, from class action lawsuits to fixing the
software itself.
VW Emissions
Test Cheating More Widespread in Germany: Official
Since
then, numerous jurisdictions in the U.S. and abroad have said they are
investigating the automaker. Among them is the U.S. Justice Department, which
on Friday publicly confirmed what NBC News and other news organizations have
been reporting: That it is investigating VW to determine whether criminal
charges are warranted for what the EPA complaint decribed as a willful
violation of the U.S. Clean Air Act standards.
"The
Department of Justice is working closely with the EPA in the investigation into
these allegations. We take these allegations, and their potential implications for
public health and air pollution in the United States, very seriously,"
said Wyn Hornbuckle, a spokesman for the department's Environment and Natural
Resources Division.
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