The chief executive of one of the world’s leading automakers, Volkswagen, has resigned after admitting to knowing about 11 million cars falsely passing emissions tests.
Volkswagen, the company that managed to sustain its image as a maker of arguably the most eco-friendly designs for many years, has stunned the world with the resignation of the chief executive Martin Winterkorn. The reason- Winterkorn admitted to knowing about car designs that are made specifically to ‘cheat‘ on emission testes.
The company has already admitted to distributing 11 million cars to its international market, which do not comply with emission regulations, although their papers say they do. What is more, the company is already allocating €6.5bn ($7.1 billion) to cover an emerging crisis.
The scandal resulted in a huge fall of Volkswagen’s shares on the stock market with a drop of over 10% since last week. Currently this sums up to a loss of about €25bn ($27 billion), and the numbers keep increasing. The company executives are currently debating the consequences for the Winterkorn, who is no longer denying the accusations. For quite some time, however, Wintekorn admitted to knowing about the cheating system, yet he was refusing to step down.
Series of law suits, which are expected to come to about $18 billion in loss for Volkswagen, are already taking place against the automaker. The company has even resorted to hiring the law firm that represented BP after their big crash – the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. All eyes are now on a special U.S.-based investigation, which will decide on the charges against the company executives.
Interestingly, the accusations are now no longer only directed towards the automaker. In fact, they have reached to the level of the German government, who, by the way, has already released a statement that they know about the devices that are designed to cheat emission tests. The government officials, however, deny any knowledge of the automaker using these “defeat devices” in their vehicles.
Image (c) Reuters
