Martin Winterkorn

The U.S. Justice Department on May 3 disclosed the filing of criminal charges against former Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn, accusing him of conspiring to cover up the German automaker's diesel emissions cheating.

Volkswagen AG's current chairman and chief executive were alerted by the carmaker's former CEO to the use of illicit emissions-control software in the United States two weeks before the carmaker disclosed the scale of its manipulations, Bild am Sonntag reported, without citing the source of the information. 

Two-thirds of Germans still believe Volkswagen builds "outstanding" cars, despite a high-profile emissions-test cheating scandal that has damaged its image, a survey found.

The German authorities tightened the screws on Volkswagen on Oct. 15, saying they would order it to recall 2.4 million vehicles across the country that are fitted with pollution-cheating software.

As the embattled auto giant continues to struggle to resolve its deepest-ever crisis, the authorities appear to be losing patience.

Volkswagen Chief Executive Matthias Mueller said in an interview with a German newspaper that the company would launch a recall for cars affected by its diesel emissions crisis in January and complete the fix by the end of next year.

Chancellor Angela Merkel on Oct.4 said the emissions scandal that has hit car giant Volkswagen was "dramatic" but would not inflict lasting damage to Germany's reputation.

Volkswagen is looking at ways to cut costs and boost cash flow and could sell more shares if the price of clearing up a scandal over its rigging of diesel emissions tests puts its credit rating at risk. 

Sometimes truth is indeed stranger than fiction. I would never have expected a German company, especially one which is built on trust, to be involved in such a shameful scam. 

Volkswagen?s top-of-the-range automaker Audi said on Sept. 28 that 2.1 million of its diesel cars worldwide are fitted with the sophisticated software enabling them to cheat emission tests.

In Germany alone, 577,000 vehicles were affected and 13,000 in the United States, an Audi spokesman said. In western Europe as a whole, the number was 1.42 million.     

Norway's economic crimes unit said on Sept.25 it had opened a fraud probe into German carmaker VW to see if cars sold in Norway had been equipped with pollution test cheating software.