After being implicated in the Volkswagen emissions scandal a few days ago, luxury automaker Audi has suspended two engineers upon purportedly confessing installing emissions cheat devices into some Audi cars equipped with three-liter V6 diesel engines.
In an interview with a German newspaper, Audi's boss Rupert Stadler shared that during a board meeting last week, the automaker's engineers, who previously stressed that the 3.0-liter V6 engines did not come with a defeat device, changed their story,resulting in their suspension.
“I asked them: Is that a defeat device?” Stadler told Donaukurier. “And then they said, ‘We have to assume that in the USA part of the software that controls the [engine] heating function can probably be considered a defeat device.”
Audi is carrying out its own investigation to check if employees in its technical development and other departments purposefully committed probable engine software manipulations.
Acting chairman of Audi Berthold Huber said in a joint statement with Audi's works council head Peter Mosch that the company is shocked by the emissions news in the U.S.
Huber pointed out that causes for such serious errors need to be discovered and wiped out.
"This has utmost priority," said Huber.
Earlier this month, Audi admitted to U.S. environmental authorities that the V6 engines failed to conform with the nation's environmental law.
On Wednesday, Nov. 18, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) kicked off an official probe on the affected vehicles from VW, Porsche and Audi employing 3.0-liter diesel engines in model years 2009 through 2016. Additionally, it gave the three brands only 45 days to submit an extensive recall plan for the affected autos.
Furthermore, earlier this week, Audi confirmed that the V6 diesel engines, which were built at Audi's factory in Germany, were broadly put into premium models marketed by Volkswagen, Porsche and Audi brands in model years 2009 to 2016.
It appears that the emissions scandal is adding pressure to Stadler, who headed Audi for nine years already.
What is at stake now, according to Stadler, is to figure out the truth and "I will not rest until everything is on the table."
