Osterloh: Volkswagen Diesel Emissions Scandal Could Involve 100 Employees

Cameron Aubernon
by Cameron Aubernon

How many among Volkswagen’s ranks were involved in the automaker’s ongoing diesel scandal? Works council boss Bernd Osterloh says it’s anyone’s guess.

In a joint interview with VW brand CEO Herbert Diess, Osterloh told Reuters the scandal could involve 10, 50, or 100 people, if not more. He added those involved would still “remain a limited group” out of a global workforce of 600,000.

The interview comes on the heels of an announcement of a deadline for amnesty to anyone involved in creating the system used to cheat during emissions testing, set for November 30, 2015.

Meanwhile, the diesel scandal is starting to take its toll on sales. Though Volkswagen of American performed well in October, global sales fell 5.3 percent to 490,000 units for the month per Bloomberg, and 4.7 percent to 4.84 million units between January and October 2015.

The Volkswagen family of brands also took a beating, falling 3.5 percent to 831,300 deliveries in October, 1.7 percent to 8.26 million deliveries over the first 10 months of 2015.

VW has set aside €6.7 billion ($7.2 billion USD) for Q3 2015 to recall 11 million affected diesels with systems designed to fool emissions tests. The automaker acknowledges this may only be the beginning, however.

Cameron Aubernon
Cameron Aubernon

Seattle-based writer, blogger, and photographer for many a publication. Born in Louisville. Raised in Kansas. Where I lay my head is home.

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  • Jpolicke Jpolicke on Nov 13, 2015

    How do 100 people keep a secret like this?

  • RHD RHD on Nov 14, 2015

    Well, we can be sure that the actual number of those who knew will be less than 600,001. My guess is the total amount of co-conspirators will be exacly the same as TTAC articles about the subject.

  • Carguy Carguy on Nov 14, 2015

    Let me all save you some time (and more TTAC articles) and tell you how this ends: VW will lay the blame on 100 engineers - all which have previously been deemed expendable by management. They will all be fired and some may face prosecution and VW will negotiate to pay a large fine to put this behind them. The senior management, which pushed the engineers to cheat and provided tacit approval for the defeat devices, will be found to be victims of rouge and disloyal employees. The bonuses they collected for meeting emissions targets using the cheat will be supplemented by recognition for their efforts in working with the government to make the scandal go away. The end.

  • JR42 JR42 on Nov 14, 2015

    I'm just glad to see a VW scandal piece without a pic of the Wolfsburg smokestacks... creeps me out every time. JR

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