Moving Forward: Audi Dissolving Dieselgate Task Force

Audi CEO Rupert Stadler has announced his company will dismantle the task force assigned to investigate how many of its diesel cars came equipped with defeat devices. The company established the team after Volkswagen Group admitted to selling 11 million diesel models, through its various brands, with illegal engine management software that hid peak NOx emissions during testing.

Even though Volkswagen has found itself smack-dab in the center of another costly controversy, Stadler claims that Audi is on the cusp of wrapping up its own diesel crisis. “We will have documented and processed all the engine/transmission combinations by the end of the first quarter 2018,” the CEO told journalists at Audi’s headquarters in Ingolstadt, Germany, this week.

According to Automotive News Europe, Audi has already handled of up to 850,000 of the contentious V-TDI engines sold across the globe. “We are at an estimated 80 percent,” Stadler said. “We are gradually emerging from the crisis mode and are moving back into regular operation.”

In the past, Stadler has been accused of having knowledge of VW’s diesel deception as early as 2010. Audi has also been faulted for developing defeat devices as early as 1999, several years before Volkswagen Group used the technology to falsify test results. However, the brand doesn’t appear to have deployed the technology on its own cars prior to the dieselgate scandal. Brownie points for exercising temporary restraint, we suppose.

With the diesel nonsense nearly settled, Audi can now focus on the widespread electrification of its fleet. By 2025, the automaker intends to have more than 20 electrified vehicles in its lineup, accounting for one-third of its total sales volume. Stadler says meeting emissions requirements is essential part of Audi’s future success, especially since it wants to expand its global footprint.

“Take this sample calculation,” he said. “Missing the fleet average target by 11 grams of CO2 per kilometer would cost us a billion euros a year in Europe. So non-fulfillment is not an option.”

[Image: Audi AG]