VW investigations expand to include chairman

It’s been another bad weekend for Volkswagen Group with reports emerging that the emissions investigations have been expanded to include the VW chairman, while US regulators are understood to have discovered cheat devices on some Audi vehicles.

Volkswagen has admitted that German prosecutors have widened their investigation of the emissions scandal to include the chairman of the company’s board of directors, Hans Dieter Poetsch, who was VW’s chief financial officer when the scandal broke in September 2015.

A second board member is also under investigation, although VW has not named that person. The company has again stated that it believes board members fulfilled their disclosure obligations.

Meanwhile, German newspaper Bild am Sonntag has reported that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) has discovered software in some Audi vehicles that lowered their carbon dioxide emissions under test conditions, Bild am Sonntag reported.

The paper said the device was different to the one which triggered last year’s diesel emissions scandal at Audi parent Volkswagen.