VW CEO Martin Winterkorn RESIGNS over emissions scandal

Prof. Dr. Winterkorn, VW CEO and the architect of much of VW’s success in the past decade, has resigned from VW over the emissions rigging scandal.

It was clear that heads would have to roll at VW over the emissions rigging scam, and that ‘head’ is the CEO of VW – Martin Winterkorn – who has this afternoon done the decent thing and fallen on his sword.

Winterkorn has continued to plead ignorance of how VW ended up fitting defeat device software to its cars to scam emissions testing, but that put him between a rock and a hard place.

If, as the ‘engineers engineer’ at VW, and its CEO, he knew nothing about the illegal use of defeat device software, then he wasn’t doing his job. Equally, if he did know, then he’s as damned as the company. He had no choice but to go.

In a statement, Winterkorn said:

I am shocked by the events of the past few days. Above all, I am stunned that misconduct on such a scale was possible in the Volkswagen Group.
As CEO I accept responsibility for the irregularities that have been found in diesel engines and have therefore requested the Supervisory Board to agree on terminating my function as CEO of the Volkswagen Group. I am doing this in the interests of the company even though I am not aware of any wrong doing on my part.
Volkswagen needs a fresh start – also in terms of personnel. I am clearing the way for this fresh start with my resignation.
I have always been driven by my desire to serve this company, especially our customers and employees. Volkswagen has been, is and will always be my life.
The process of clarification and transparency must continue. This is the only way to win back trust. I am convinced that the Volkswagen Group and its team will overcome this grave crisis.

A scalp of culpability may help VW look like they’re trying to put things right, but the way this issue is growing like Topsy we must start to question whether VW is actually going to be able to survive.

Equally, we must also ask what damage this will do to the German economy as a whole – and the German car industry in particular – and ask how much the German government knew of this subterfuge ahead of the EPA’s revelation last Friday.

This is going to run and run. And where it ends up is not going to be good news for anyone.