VW emissions scandal deepens

The bad news keeps piling up for Germany's largest automaker. On Tuesday, Volkswagen said hundreds of thousands of its vehicles were irregularly emitting carbon dioxide.

The company is already embroiled in its biggest scandal ever after admitting it had installed software designed to thwart emissions tests in diesel cars sold around the world.

Until now, the ever-widening scandal had centered on nitrogen oxide emissions. But the new revelations, which the company said had been identified in around 800,000 cars, involve carbon dioxide emissions.

VW said the latest findings concerned "predominantly vehicles with diesel engines," raising the possibility for the first time that gasoline-powered cars may also have questionable emissions.

The company, which is based in Wolfsburg, Germany, said this latest development could cost it an additional 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion), on top of the 6.7 billion euros that it has already put aside to cover the cost of recalling vehicles affected by its deception over diesel emissions.

"VW's top management will immediately start a dialogue with responsible authorities regarding the consequences of these findings," VW said in a statement.

VW sales hit

News of the possibly false CO2 emissions came on the same day that several major automakers announced one of their strongest months of sales in the US market in over a decade - all except Volkswagen.

General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles all registered their best October in 11 years. Even Toyota, No. 3 in US sales, logged an all-time record for the month.

But Volkswagen, the world's second-largest carmaker, said 30,387 people in the US had bought VW cars in October, a meager 0.24 percent year-on-year rise.

Shares in Volkswagen have plummeted since the scandal broke on Sept. 18. On Tuesday, those stocks opened 5.1 percent lower before paring their losses and closing down 1.5 percent at 111 euros.

Investors were put off after US regulators leveled charges against VW subsidiaries Audi and Porsche, which the regulators said also used illegal mechanisms in their cars' engines to cheat on pollution controls.

cjc/tko (dpa, Reuters, AFP)