Embattled German auto giant Volkswagen AG (VW) on Friday posted its first drop in sales in over a decade, as it struggled to recover from a massive pollution cheating scandal.
Sales of vehicles bearing the Volkswagen badge fell 5 percent to 5.82 million, the company said, marking the first such decline in 11 years.
Overall Volkswagen group sales, which also include brands like Audi, Porsche and Skoda, reached 9.93 million, 2 percent less than a year ago and the first fall since 2002.
“Almost 10 million vehicles sold — that’s an excellent result given a difficult situation in certain regions and for diesel in the last quarter,” Volkswagen CEO Matthias Mueller said.
He acknowledged that challenges await this year, and said the company needed to be “more efficient for a successful future.”
Volkswagen sank into its biggest crisis over its stunning revelations in September last year that it had fitted 11 million of its vehicles with devices designed to cheat pollution tests.
Earlier this week, the US government said it was suing Volkswagen for US$20 billion in civil penalties.
Mueller, who is traveling to the US where he will attend a media reception in Detroit today, has vowed to press on with the company’s diesel marketing offensive in the US, despite the government lawsuit.
The company has fallen far short of its public pledges of cooperation, according to sharply worded statements released on Friday from the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut, who are leading a probe by more than 40 US states in parallel with an ongoing US federal investigation.
“Volkswagen’s cooperation with the states’ investigation has been spotty — and frankly, more of the kind one expects from a company in denial than one seeking to leave behind a culture of admitted deception,” New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said.
“It has been slow to produce documents from its US files, it has sought to delay responses until it completes its ‘independent investigation’ several months from now and it has failed to pursue every avenue to overcome the obstacles it says that German privacy law presents to turning over e-mails from its executives’ files in Germany. Our patience with Volkswagen is wearing thin,” Schneiderman said.
Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen, one of six state officials leading the probe, said the states will “seek to use any means available to us” to hold Volkswagen accountable.
“I find it frustrating that, despite public statements professing cooperation and an expressed desire to resolve the various investigations that it faces following its calculated deception, Volkswagen is, in fact, resisting cooperation by citing German law,” Jepsen said.
In response, a Volkswagen spokesman said the company cannot comment on a pending investigation, but has been responsive to US officials.
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