VW executive to face tough question on emissions scandal
FILE - In this Sept. 21, 2015 file photo President and CEO of Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. Michael Horn at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Tough questions awaited Volkswagen's top U.S. executive at a congressional hearing Thursday as the emissions-rigging scandal enveloping the world's largest automaker deepened.
Volkswagen of America CEO Michael Horn was to testify before a House subcommittee investigating the company's use of on-board computer software designed to cheat on government emissions tests in nearly 500,000 of its four-cylinder "clean diesel" cars, starting with the 2009 model year.
According to Horn's prepared remarks, VW intends to withdraw applications seeking U.S. emissions certifications for its 2016 model Jettas, Golfs, Passats and Beetles with diesel engines. That raises questions about whether a "defeat device" similar to that in earlier models is also in the new cars.
As a result, VW will leave thousands of diesel vehicles stranded at ports nationwide, giving dealers no new diesel-powered vehicles to sell. It wasn't immediately clear when VW would refile its application, but Horn's testimony said the company was working with regulators to get certification.
The chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Republican Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, said "the American public deserves answers. VW needs to come clean."
Separately, German prosecutors searched VW headquarters in Wolfsburg and other locations Thursday seeking material that would help clarify who was responsible for the cheating. The searches were intended to "secure documents and data storage devices" that could identify those involved in the alleged manipulation and explain how it was carried out, prosecutors said in a statement.
It was unclear what the device found in some VW models does. Liz Purchia, a spokeswoman for the Environmental Protection Agency, said VW recently gave the agency information on an "auxiliary emissions control device." The EPA and California Air Resources Board are investigating "the nature and purpose" of the device, she said.
The company said such devices can sense engine performance, road speed "and any other parameter for activating, modulating, delaying or deactivating" emissions controls.
The lack of certification is bad news for American VW dealers, who were hoping to put the new models on sale soon. For some dealerships, the diesel models accounted for about one-third of sales.
Tom Backer, general manager of Lash Volkswagen in White Plains, New York, said his dealership already had lost three deals with potential buyers because he could not get the new cars. "It's definitely a stain on the brand's image," he said.
Horn, a 51-year-old German and veteran VW manager who took the reins of the brand's American subsidiary last year, intended to tell lawmakers that he learned about the cheating software "over the past several weeks," VW spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan said.
'I did not think that something like this was possible at the Volkswagen Group," Horn said in his prepared remarks. "We have broken the trust of our customers, dealerships, and employees, as well as the public and regulators."
Also scheduled to testify were EPA officials who oversee emissions testing and compliance with clean air rules.
VW first acknowledged the deception to U.S. regulators on Sept. 3. That was more than a year after researchers at West Virginia University published a study showing the real-world emissions of the company's Jetta and Passat models were far higher than allowed. The same cars had met emissions standards when tested in the lab.
VW was able to fool the EPA because the agency only tested the cars on treadmill-like devices called dynamometers and did not use portable test equipment on real roads. The software in the cars' engine-control computers determined when dynamometer tests were under way. It then turned on pollution controls that reduced the output of nitrogen oxides that contribute to smog and other pollution, the EPA has said.
Only when the EPA and California regulators refused to approve VW's 2016 diesel models for sale did the company admit earlier what it had done.
Though VW and U.S. regulators have not yet announced a fix for illegal emissions under a nationwide recall, Horn was prepared to the company was "determined to make things right."