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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.

Jay Leno takes a ride in Gabriel Iglesias' classic 1966 VW bus

We've seen Jay Leno driving all manner of vehicles, many of them epically fast. But few (this is side of his steamers, anyway) have been as slow – or quite as beautiful – as this classic 1966 Volkswagen Samba. While many of the vehicles featured on episodes of Jay Leno's Garage have actually been from Jay Leno's own garage, the former talk-show host has been known to feature some interesting rides from fellow comedians. A couple of weeks ago it was Adam Carolla's '68 Lamborghini Islero, and this vintage, pristine VW bus belongs to Gabriel Iglesias. It's in beautiful condition and is a sight to see, even if it has a little trouble making its way down the highway. Or starting up again after a quick snack break.

VW quite interested in solid-state batteries for EVs

Volkswagen is about to make a decision about which advanced battery technology the automaker will seriously investigate to give its electric vehicles more range. VW will decide by July if it will use solid-state batteries made by US-based QuantumScape Corp. in future EVs, according to Bloomberg News. Last year, VW bought a five-percent stake in QuantumScape, which was founded by ex-Stanford University researchers. The lure is that QuantumScape's solid-state batteries may provide a single-charge range of as long as 430 miles. That's more than three times the current range of the VW e-Golf electric vehicle the company recently started selling to the public and is substantially longer than the single-charge range of the Tesla Model S electric sedan. The batteries are also fireproof, making VW's potential decision one with an eye towards more vehicle safety. Solid-state battery technology, in which solid lithium electrodes are used instead of liquid electrodes such as those in lithium-ion batteries, are the subject of research at other automakers and suppliers as well. Toyota says they could be here by 2020. Recently, the cordless vacuum cleaner maker Dyson acquired a $15-million equity stake in Michigan-based battery maker Sakti3 with the idea of using the startup's solid-state batteries in its products. General Motors also has a minority stake in Sakti3, which was spun off from the University of Michigan.