World’s biggest auto maker, Volkswagen has named Matthias Mueller as the new Chief Executive Officer to replace Martin Winterkohn, who resigned on Wednesday as a result of the emissions scandal that hit the company in the US and has now spread to Europe.
The company was accused of installing a “defeat” software on its diesel-powered vehicles which enabled the cars to control emissions drastically when undergoing laboratory tests but release emissions 40 times higher than regulations allow during normal operation.
The 62-year-old Mueller, who heads the company’s Porsche sport cars division, was appointed to steer the company out of the worst scandal in its 78-year history.
“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 in a statement.
But the country is in even greater trouble than initially thought, as the German transport minister announced the carmaker had manipulated test results for about 2.8 million vehicles in the country, compared to 482,000 in the US where the scandal broke.
The company admitted on Tuesday that the software that allowed the company to cheat US emission tests was installed on 11 million models worldwide.
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