In Pictures: From Dieselgate to Monkeygate, Volkswagen’s ongoing emission scandals and leadership crisis
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November 2015: EPA issued a different Notice of Violation of the Clean Air Act to Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche for producing and selling certain model year 2014–2016 3.0 litre diesel cars and SUVs that include a software device that circumvents EPA emissions standards for certain air pollutants. These vehicles emitted up to nine times more pollution than emissions standards allowed.
January 2016: The US Department of Justice filed a complaint on behalf of EPA against Volkswagen AG, Audi AG, Volkswagen Group of America, Inc., Volkswagen Group of America Chattanooga Operations, LLC, Porsche AG, and Porsche Cars North America, Inc. for alleged violations of the Clean Air Act.
January 2017: Volkswagen AG agreed to pay penalties and fines totalling $4.3 billion and to a series of measures to further strengthen its compliance and control systems.
Matthias Müller, CEO, Volkswagen Group, said: “Volkswagen deeply regrets the behaviour that gave rise to the diesel crisis. We will continue to press forward with changes to our way of thinking and working.”
January 2018: The New York Times reported that the European Research Group on Environment and Health in the Transport Sector (EUGT), a research organisation financed by Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler, had commissioned a test to study the effect of diesel exhaust on monkeys. The experiments were conducted in 2014 by using 10 cynomolgus macaque monkeys and exposing them to fumes from a diesel Volkswagen Beetle. The carmakers aimed to prove that modern technology had significantly reduced the impact of diesel vehicle emissions on human health as compared to their predecessors. Volkswagen was blamed for manipulating the tests. The Beetle provided by Volkswagen for the tests had been fitted with software that caused it to produce far less pollution in the lab than the car would have produced on the road.
In response to the allegations, Volkswagen suspended Thomas Steg, head of group external relations and sustainability. EUGT was shut down in 2017, before their study was published.
April 2018: Volkswagen replaced Matthias Müller with Herbert Diess as CEO and announced extensive revision of the Group structure.
May 2018: The US Department of Justice charged Martin Winterkorn, the former chairman of the management board of Volkswagen AG (VW), with conspiracy and wire fraud. The first count charged that Winterkorn conspired with other senior VW executives and employees to defraud the US, defraud VW’s US customers and violate the Clean Air Act by making false representations to regulators and the public about the ability of VW’s supposedly ‘clean diesel’ vehicles to comply with US emissions requirements. The remaining three counts charged Winterkorn with wire fraud in connection with the scheme.
June 2018: The Braunschweig public prosecutor in Germany imposed a fine of $1.2 billion on Volkswagen. Volkswagen accepted the fine and admitted its responsibility.
German police took Rupert Stadler, CEO, Audi, into custody at the request of the Munich II Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The supervisory board of Audi AG transferred the duties of Rupert Stadler to Abraham Schot, who has been a member of the board of management of Audi AG with responsibility for sales and marketing since September 2017, on a temporary basis.