Volkswagen CEO Matthias Mueller and the company are in hot water again as they faced new questions on Tuesday when US regulators found that the emission tests scandal of the German car maker includes luxury brand Porsche, which in the past was also headed by the executive.
The US Environmental Protection Authority said late Monday VW used devices to manipulate air-pollution tests in three-liter diesel engines found in Porsche and Audi vehicles, the firm's major profit contributors.
Volkswagen admitted it installed cheat software on up to 11 million vehicles with smaller diesel engines, reported Reuters.
Banking advisory analyst Arndt Ellinghorst from Evercore ISI said, "It appears that it is the EPA that has discovered this violation and not VW, raising concerns around reporting, transparency and integrity within VW."
He is worried that the allegations surfaced after VW first admitted to cheating U.S. emission tests, which triggered the investigation.
"Volkswagen has done a disservice to German industry," stated the head of the Federation of German industries Ulrich Grillo. He commented the firm is obliged to the whole car industry to quickly clear up the emission test cheating scandal. The European Union's exec body European Commission and German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for transparency and clarity.
The German automative manufacturer is under pressure to see who are accountable for the cheating. They are in trouble for being slow in responding lawmakers, analysts and investors. Analyst Juergen Pieper of Bankhaus Metzler stated the widening of the scandal could pressure the firm's managers, saying, "Even Mueller as a former Porsche CEO may need to ask himself whether he bears some responsibility."
Some analysts doubted if Mueller's appointment in September as group or Volkswagen CEO could help clean up the scandal of emission tests, as he is a company veteran.
Mueller's appointment as the new Volkswagen CEO was meant to clean up the scandal from the group that oversaw cheating engineers on emission tests and take greater accountability. However, that can be short lived since the U.S. EPA also accused Porsche of a similar software trick. Having discovered Porsche as part of the cheating brings Mueller trouble. If he did not know what his engineers did, it reflects a non-impressive management on his part, said Bloomberg.
"This just keeps getting uglier," said AutoTrends consulting president Joe Phillippi said of the emission test cheating scandal. "If they are going to deny this, they will have to do a deep dive internally and figure out who did what. If the EPA is right, then Mueller could have to fall on his sword, too."
