BERLIN — Volkswagen and an independent monitoring team still have “a lot of work to do” before the company’s compliance procedures can be certified after a $27 billion global emissions cheating scandal, Larry Thompson, an independent compliance auditor, said on Thursday.
Thompson, a former deputy U.S. attorney general, was installed in 2017 as compliance auditor as part of VW’s criminal plea agreement with the U.S. Justice Department.
Thompson had been due to appear at a conference hosted by German magazine Automobilwoche, but instead spoke to participants in a video recording due to a scheduling conflict. Automobilwoche is a sister publication of Automotive News.
Thompson said VW was making good progress on improving its processes, and cited what he called “very good cooperation and support” by VW’s project management office, as well as top company executives and the works councils of both VW and Audi.
VW and other German carmakers agreed on Thursday to spend up to 3,000 euros ($3,430) per vehicle, including through trade-in incentives, to help reduce diesel emissions given a growing number of driving bans in major cities.
Top German politicians say the emissions cheating scandal damaged the global reputation of the German car industry, and say consumers should not bear the cost of retrofitting cars.
Thompson said his team had reviewed thousands of pages of documents and spoken with hundreds of employees and officers. Now, he said, VW and the monitoring team would begin testing to ensure revamped compliance procedures actually worked.
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