Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 21 October 2015

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications

Emissions Readings for Volkswagen Cars: Discussion

9:30 am

Mr. Lars Himmer:

It is special being in Ireland and in particular, working with Volkswagen. I recognised that as soon as I came here. As to exactly what will change, it is only what we are presenting at the moment but we undoubtedly are doing everything in order that there will be no change in respect of CO2 emissions, fuel consumption or performance. Were there to be, then we would be obliged to address it but there should not be. Consequently, I will not speculate and reiterate everything is being done to make certain it is meeting all the standards. When it meets all the standards, there also should be no difference in the residual value. We are monitoring this carefully not just in Ireland but even more so in other markets where we have a higher volume and better data points and we see very little impact. If one looks back on the history of recalls of our vehicles or those of others as an industry, while there might be minor beeps, they often settle very quickly as well. It really is about how we manage the next months and how we address the uncertainty that exists at present as we have the solutions. It will depend on that. On safety, there is no safety issue. We still have the type approval in place and the cars are safe to drive. They are roadworthy, there is no issue.