2006
The VW board decides to conquer the American market with the “Clean Diesel”.
Autumn 2006
Engineers are pushing their limits when trying to tune the two-liter engine to meet stringent US emissions regulations. The colleagues from the software department should help. An internal dispute ensues because it is clear to all involved that it can only be a program capable of circumventing the rules. Finally, a senior manager – a level below the brand management board – decides the dispute. Result of the meeting: Go, but do not get caught!
January 2007
Martin Winterkorn moves from the development board to the all-powerful CEO. Almighty, except for Ferdinand Piëch, who pulls the strings as chairman of the supervisory board in the background and never raises any doubts about his claim to leadership.
2007
Early on, the first side effects of software manipulation are evident: The engine control repeatedly switches back and forth between everyday and test bench mode, and the filters in the exhaust system then clog up quickly. Remedy is expensive, the production costs would rise by 250 euros per car. A decision that can normally only be approved by the highest authority …
October 2007
According to the US investigators, VW has passed a red line with the decision to continue to sell the clean diesel with re-tuned software. From then on, the fraud is firmly anchored in the genes of US VWs – and engineers are developing more sophisticated methods to protect against manipulation. The fraud turns from a temporary evasive maneuver into a permanent solution.
spring 2013
The technical problems caused by the cheat software require further “fine tuning”. The investigators are convinced that the then head of development of the engine division Heinz-Jakob Neusser has approved the work. According to testimonies, he is said to have been privy to the manipulations early on.
April 2014
Environmental researchers from the International Council of Clean Transportation (ICCT) are releasing a study that exposes actual pollutant emissions in day-to-day operations. VW recognizes the explosiveness of the study immediately and advises what to do. A confidant Winterkorns is said to have been involved in the conference. Whether he inaugurated his boss, however, is unclear. According to information of the “Handelsblatt” a written note went to Winterkorn, but there is no proof that he also read it.
2014
The negotiators of VW address the increasingly pressing issues of the US authorities EPA and CARB (California) with a stalling tactic. Look for the mistake that you can not explain to yourself. The cat-and-mouse game takes months.
July 2015
Winterkorn orders the responsible engineer to report. After this has explained the whole dimension of fraud, the CEO should have reacted surprisingly cool. That have loud ?? South German newspaper ?? Witnesses testified. It gave the impression as if Winterkorn already knew about it. At the meeting also shortly before from BMW to the place of the VW brand boss changed Herbert Diess to have been present. The group later states that the concrete content of the meeting can not be reconstructed in detail. Infringements of US law was according to previous knowledge was not mentioned.
September 19, 2015
One day after the opening of the International Motor Show in Frankfurt, EPA boss Gina Mc Carthy appears in front of the press and makes the manipulation public. Winterkorn, who had talked about responsibility for the environment and people the night before at VW’s opening party, is not prepared for this. VW has a good 480,000 cars in the US call back.
September 23, 2015
In a video Winterkorn explains his resignation as CEO of the VW Group. He denies any knowledge of the manipulations. In his place is Matthias Müller, who had previously determined the fortunes of Porsche. Meanwhile, new details about the dimensions of fraud are becoming known. According to Volkswagen, more than eleven million cars have been delivered with the software in question, of which more than 8.3 million cars in Europe alone.
October 2015
The prosecutor Braunschweig investigates against several employees of the VW Group.
November 2015
The scandal continues to draw more circles. Now, the three-liter engines are affected, driving the luxury cars of Audi and Porsche. The sale in the US market is stopped. The authorities – especially in the US – are becoming increasingly impatient.
December 2015
A California court orders a class action lawsuit from injured VW owners. In Germany, the supplier Bosch is also targeted by the investigators.
January 2016
The US Department of Justice files charges against VW for violating the Clean Air Act. This threatens penalties in the billions. Unlike the German Federal Motor Transport Authority, the US Environmental Protection Agency rejects the conversion plans for the 1.6-liter engines.
February 2016
The US investigators bring charges against Winterkorn, his successor Müller and the head of the US subsidiary, Michael Horn. The latter, who was not involved as a salesman in the trickery on the engine control, leaves the US. In Hanover, the prosecutor’s office extends the circle of suspects from 6 to 17.
June 2016
VW agrees with environmental and consumer lawyers in the US on criminal and compensation payments of around 15 billion dollars. The entire conversion and compensation plan will be finalized in the spring.
September 2016
The number of shareholders who see themselves harmed by VW, continues to rise. Around 1400 complaints are already pending. At Audi, technical director Stefan Knirsch has to go.
November 2016
Supervisory Board Chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch is increasingly under pressure. In his role as Chief Financial Officer of the Group, he is co-responsible for the violation of the obligation to provide information to the shareholders, according to the investigators. The charge: market manipulation. Pötsch and the group agree to support the investigators “in full”.
January 2017
The FBI arrests Oliver Schmidt, who was responsible for communication with the US authorities until March 2015. The investigators accuse him of obfuscation. In the worst case, he faces 169 years imprisonment. The number of complaints against top managers continues to grow. In Braunschweig prosecutors are now leading Winterkorn as suspects.
February 2017
Group patriarch Piëch has heavily incriminated Winterkorn in a statement to the prosecutor in Braunschweig. Winterkorn had earlier than previously admitted to learn of the diesel fraud. Piëch himself received a note at the end of February 2015 that VW has a major problem in the US – by the former head of the Israeli domestic intelligence service. Subsequently, he informed Winterkorn and later also the supervisory board members Stephan Weil, Bernd Osterloh, Berthold Huber and Wolfgang Porsche. All four inspectors deny that.
March 15, 2017
The Munich public prosecutor’s office lets search through the VW subsidiary Audi offices. There is also a raid on the parent company in Wolfsburg. The investigation is about 80,000 cars for the US market, which has equipped Audi with diesel engines.
April 17, 2017
A US court agrees to a $ 4.3 billion settlement by the Department of Justice. This settles criminal investigations against Volkswagen. Only in January, VW had a confession and thus criminal offenses such as conspiracy against environmental laws and obstruction of the judicial authorities granted.
December 7, 2017
The VW manager Oliver Schmidt is sentenced to seven years imprisonment and a fine. The US court finds it proven that Schmidt helped cover up the manipulation of diesel engines in the US. Volkswagen dismisses the manager thereupon – allegedly, because the statutes of the group do not allow otherwise.
May 3, 2018
Shortly after the US Department of Justice has brought charges against former CEO Martin Winterkorn, she grants a rare exception to the new VW boss Herbert Diess: He is allowed to travel around the world without fear of being arrested in connection with investigations into the diesel manipulation become. In return Diess should give the investigators information.
June 11, 2018
Daimler has to get on the orders of Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) hundreds of thousands of diesel vehicles in the workshops. In the cars, the exhaust gas cleaning should have been manipulated. The number of vehicles affected across Europe is around 774,000. At the same time it is announced that the prosecutor investigates Audi boss Rupert Stadler. It is also about the manipulation of emission control in diesel vehicles. The prosecutors accuse Stadler of fraud.
June 13, 2018
The prosecutor Braunschweig imposed on the VW Group a fine of one billion euros. The company accepts. The decision does not affect the civil proceedings pending before the courts, such as the complaints of car buyers and the ongoing criminal investigations in Braunschweig against currently 49 persons.
18 June 2018
Audi boss Rupert Stadler is arrested for dimming. He is accused of fraud when selling diesel cars with manipulated exhaust gas purification. Stadler denies the allegations. Darkening and also risk of absconding was also the reason that the Stuttgart Justice had arrested a senior Porsche employee in April. Third in the U-Haft-Bunde is a former head of Audi engine development and former Porsche Development Board. He has been in custody since September 2017. One of his former employees at Audi in Neckarsulm has been released since November 2017.