Volkswagen’s former chief executive officer Martin Winterkorn may have known about problems with diesel emissions as long ago as spring 2014.
According to a German media report, a letter from the US Environmental Protection Agency regarding the issue was discussed last year at a board meeting of VW, led by Winterkorn. Volkswagen said it had no record of that.
Winterkorn stepped down as CEO of the carmaker in late September, insisting he did not know about the software defeat device, which made diesel cars appear less pollutant in test situations than in real life.
Michael Horn, head of the group’s US operations, said at a congressional hearing earlier this month that in spring 2014 he was told “there was a possible emissions non-compliance”. He denied knowing about the manipulation of test results.
VW admitted in September that its cars were fitted with a software device manipulating the amount of emissions in official tests. Winterkorn said, he was shocked by the events and “that misconduct on such a scale was possible in the Volkswagen group”.
The EPA found that VW diesel cars in the US emitted up to 40 times the permitted level of nitrogen oxides. German prosecutors have now launched an investigation into who knew what and when.
The German transport minister, Alexander Dobrindt, will travel to Washington on Monday for talks on the scandal with his American counterpart, Anthony Foxx.
Meanwhile, VW said that earlier versions of its EA 288 diesel engine did not contain the cheating software. On Thursday, there had been rumours that even more than the currently affected 11m vehicles could have been set up with the device.
