Elon Musk, the chief executive officer of Tesla Motors, said the dishonesty of Volkswagen AG regarding its diesel emission tests is “obviously bad.” However, he emphasized that people should be concerned about the real issue—carbon dioxide emissions.
Musk taking action on CO2 emissions is important
During a seminar organized by the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs in Berlin on Thursday, Musk emphasized the importance of taking measures to resolve the problem of carbon dioxide emissions.
Musk said, “It’s very important that we take action today to recognize that we are making a very significant change in the chemical constituency of the atmosphere and the oceans. It’s very important that we do something.”
Musk added that Germany is “really great” on sustainable power generation, however, he noted that the country is not sustainable in terms of power consumption. According to him, “Transport is still very much petrol and diesel. So hopefully that’s something that will change.”
Volkswagen diesel emission testing scandal
Authorities around the world put the auto industry under scrutiny amid the Volkswagen diesel emission testing scandal. The German automaker admitted cheating the air pollution tests in the United States over the past six years.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Volkswagen violated the Clean Air Act (CAA) by using software that circumvents the emission standards of the agency for certain air pollutants. The vehicles involved in the CAA violation were the four-cylinder Volkswagen and Audi diesel cars from model years 2009 to 2015.
Volkswagen initially allocated €6.5 billion or $7.3 billion for the potential costs related to its deception on the diesel-emission tests. The German automaker installed diesel engines in 11 million cars worldwide.
Volkswagen CEO Winterkorn resigned
Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterjkorn resigned amid the diesel emission test scandal. Winterkorn said he was “shocked by the events” over the past few days.
“Above all, I am stunned that misconduct on such a scale was possible in the Volkswagen Group,” said Winterkorn.
According toVolkswagen, its supervisory board would discuss the potential successors for Winterkorn during a meeting on Friday. Some Volkswagen executives are expected to lose their jobs.
Analysts suggested that Matthias Muller, Porsche AG chief executive, and Rupert Stadler, Audi chairman, and chief executive, are potential candidates to replace Winterkorn.
