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Volkswagen to 'refit' 11 million diesel vehicles [UPDATE]

UPDATE: This post has been updated with an official comment from Volkswagen of America. In response to its devastating diesel-emissions scandal, Volkswagen will ask some 11 million of its customers to report into dealerships to have their diesel-powered vehicles "refitted," Reuters is reporting. According to new CEO Matthais Muller, customers will be asked to report in "in the next few days" for the refit, although it's not entirely clear exactly what the 'refit' entails. Mueller apparently made the announcement during a closed-door meeting with 1,000 of the German company's top managers, although he didn't explain exactly how the emissions-cheating software would be sorted out, or what impact it would have on the performance of mileage of the company's diesel-powered products. It's expected that the refit work will cost VW $6.5 billion, Reuters claims. "We are facing a long trudge and a lot of hard work," Muller allegedly said. "We will only be able to make progress in steps and there will be setbacks." Autoblog reached out to Volkswagen of America to see when American consumers would be asked to report to dealers, what the refit involves, how long it's expected to take to repair all the cars in the US and globally, and what impact this fix will have on the performance and fuel economy of its diesel-powered cars and SUVs. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, VWoA wasn't too forthcoming. "We don't comment on media speculation on internal meetings," Volkswagen of America spokesman Mark Gillies told Autoblog, adding, "We don't have any information on what the remedy might be at the moment, but we are working on it as a matter of the utmost urgency."

Winterkorn vacates chairs on Audi, Truck & Bus boards

The last remaining vestiges of Martin Winterkorn's power within the Volkswagen Group are slowly melting away. The former chairman of the group's management board resigned as CEO nearly two months ago in the wake of the diesel emissions scandal. He held onto other roles within the group, but one by one he's been vacating those as well. Last month Winterkorn resigned from his role at Porsche SE – Volkswagen's largest shareholder. Now the latest development comes from Bloomberg, which reports that Winterkorn has stepped down from his role as chairman of the supervisory board at Audi. Prior to his promotion to run the entire group, Winterkorn served as chief executive of the Audi division, and prior to his resignation served continued to serve as its board chairman. No date was given for his resignation from that capacity, nor any successor named at this point. Repeated requests for clarification from Audi have gone unanswered. In correspondence with Autoblog, however, spokespeople for VW's commercial vehicle operations confirmed that Winterkorn has also stepped down as the chairman of the board at Truck & Bus GmbH. The newly established division encompasses truck manufacturers Man and Scania. Winterkorn also served as chairman of Scania's board, but requests for confirmation of his departure from that role also went unanswered. The Swedish truck manufacturer, however, named Henrik Henriksson as its a new chief executive only a few days ago.

VW lawyers up with firm that defended BP

The string of bad news for Volkswagen shows no sign of slowing yet, especially with the recent resignation of CEO Martin Winterkorn. For aid in its legal defense in the US over its ongoing diesel emissions scandal, the automaker has now employed Kirkland & Ellis LLP, which was the same law firm BP used for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, according to Automotive News. VW is surely hoping that things go easier for it than BP. After the massive oil spill, the company paid $4 billion to settle criminal allegations and another $18.7 billion for the other federal and state claims, Automotive News reports. We'll see. Based on fines for each of the 482,000 diesel vehicles with this evasive software in the US, VW could be on the hook for $18 billion from this lapse. In addition, 11 million units are potentially affected across the globe, and the company is already setting aside 6.5 billion euros ($7.25 billion) in expected costs. The automaker's stock on the German exchange is being hit hard by this scandal. The original discovery of high pollution levels in VW's 2.0-liter TDI engine began with researchers last summer, and the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board had been working on the problem for months before the EPA issued its notice of violation on September 18. A criminal investigation has now begun. The day before his resignation, Winterkorn issued a video where he apologized profusely for the scandal and promised to make things right.