VW head Müller says company is of “systemic” relevance for Germany, rejects diesel retrofitting

The head of Germany’s largest carmaker VW, Matthias Müller, has said his company is of “systemic” relevance for the country and therefore must not be financially overburdened with costs accruing from a retrofitting of manipulated diesel cars, Daniel Delhaes writes in Handelsblatt. Müller said the hardware changes that need to be made in a diesel engine to bring exhaust emissions down to advertised levels would cost between 1,500 euros and 7,000 euros per car, arguing that the 25 billion euros the company had to pay for fraud in the US were enough. “We cannot pay another 17 billion for hardware retrofitting,” Müller said.

Read the article in German here.

See the CLEW article Court ruling opens door for diesel bans in German cities for background.