Volkswagen: CO2 emissions problem far smaller than suspected

Volkswagen was plunged into the biggest crisis in its history after the revelation that 11 million of its vehicles had been fitted with devices that switched anti-pollution controls on during tests, but shut off the devices during normal driving. On Wednesday, however, it said that further internal investigations and measurement checks found that "almost all of these model variants do correspond to the {CO2 | CO2) figures originally determined".

It seems after all the fears that Volkswagen (VW) would go under over the emissions scandal last September, the company is now saying that the number of cars affected by the subversion is now only a fraction of the estimate.

NordLB analyst Frank Schope said that with the announcement, the "scale of Volkswagen's problems appears to be declining". But this didn't bear out in investigations, Volkswagen said on Wednesday, and only about 36,000 vehicles could be affected in the CO2 matter.

VW was initially caught installing so-called defeat devices in their cars which could detect when the vehicle was under examination and lower the nitrogen oxide emissions. "The suspicion that the fuel consumption figures of current production vehicles had been unlawfully changed was not confirmed", VW said. Volkswagen now says only about 36,000 vehicles were affected by the problem and that there's no evidence of intentional or illegal jiggery-pokery.

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"The sheer number is indication that we are taking this very seriously and seeking conclusive results as soon as possible", Potsch said.

And Porsche, too, said the affair could have a "negative impact" on its own results. It has set aside a total of €6.7bn (£4.8bn) to deal with the fall-out from its trouble but the figure is expected to rise given the cost of recalls, compensation and likely regulatory penalties.

The German automaker called the press conference to provide an initial update on its investigation into its emissions scandal, which is being led by global law firm Jones Day.