Wolfsburg

The head of the European Parliament told a group of German regional newspapers that the emissions scandal at Volkswagen (VW) would hit the German economy hard but Europe?s biggest carmaker was likely to survive the crisis. 

Germany?s finance and economy ministers have played down the risk of a broader economic danger for Germany from the scandal. 

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.

The Swiss Federal Roads Office on Oct. 2 issued a preliminary ban on registering new Volkswagen diesel vehicles that may be outfitted with software designed to cheat emissions tests, it said in a statement.

The first cases against Volkswagen in Turkey regarding an emissions-cheating scandal have been filed by an Istanbul-based law firm, although more complaints are expected to be filed in the coming weeks.

German authorities has given scandal-hit Volkswagen an October 7 deadline to set out a timeline for bringing all its diesel cars in line with national pollution guidelines, a newspaper said Sept. 27.

The revelations that German car manufacturer VW had purposely been misleading customers and authorities to believe their cars emitted less pollutants than they actually did rocked the world. But the ‘diesel dupe’, as the story has been dubbed could have another twist to it. A chapter of intrigue and industrial espionage.

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.

Volkswagen chief executive Martin Winterkorn resigned on Sept.23 over a pollution cheating scandal that has sparked a US criminal investigation and worldwide legal action with unfathomable financial consequences for the auto giant.

Anna Stefanopoulou, the Greek mechanical-engineering professor and engine expert at the University of Michigan, who reportedly exposed the Volkswagen emmissions scandal burst the Greek media bubble with a statement on her site:

I was not involved in the research or data analysis that exposed the VW issue as some Greek language articles and blogs stated.

The scandal engulfing Volkswagen, which has admitted cheating diesel vehicle emissions tests in the United States, spread on Sept. 22 as South Korea said it would conduct its own investigation and a French minister called for an EU-wide probe.