Matthias Mueller is new VW CEO as it's revealed 2.8 MILLION German cars affected by Defeat Device Scam

Matthias Mueller is new VW CEO

The VW board has appointed Matthias Mueller as the new CEO of VW, and the German government reveals 2.8 million German cars affected.

It’s not a big surprise but, after a seven hour board meeting, the new VW CEO has been named as Porsche boss Matthias Muller, taking the role from Martin Winterkorn who resigned earlier this week.

Muller faces a tough role in trying to salvage some semblance of credibility for VW – and a way forward – in the wake of the revelations so far, but it looks like the revelations may keep on coming.

Today, after revealing on Thursday that VW also scammed UK and European emission tests with their defeat device software, German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt has announced that 2.8 million cars in Germany are wrapped up in the emissions scam too.

As the bad news for VW just keeps on coming, Muller said:

My most urgent task is to win back trust for the Volkswagen Group – by leaving no stone unturned and with maximum transparency, as well as drawing the right conclusions from the current situation. Under my leadership, Volkswagen will do everything it can to develop and implement the most stringent compliance and governance standards in our industry.
If we manage to achieve that then the Volkswagen Group with its innovative strength, its strong brands and above all its competent and highly motivated team has the opportunity to emerge from this crisis stronger than before.

It’s a bold aim, but VW has little choice other than to throw to the wolves anyone remotely implicated in the defeat device saga (the cull of the culpable is already starting), make whatever financial recompense it is ordered to by regulators and desperately try to regain some sort of trust from the public.

It’s not going to be easy.