Former VW CEO to Pay Roughly $12 Million in Damages Over Dieselgate Scandal

In his resignation letter, he spoke about being in shock about the events that had transpired and “stunned” that misconduct on such a large scale could take place within the Volkswagen Group. He went on to accept responsibility for all those irregularities, and while he did get indicted for wire fraud and conspiracy in the United States, he’s yet to face any of those charges.

Currently, both VW and Winterkorn aren’t making any statements. Still, according to Reuters, the two parties did agree on a settlement where the former CEO would pay the previously mentioned sum of money in damages. The settlement could reportedly get signed this week.

If some of you forgot everything that led up to this point, here’s a quick recap of how VW shot themselves in the foot while also taking a massive wrecking ball to the entire car industry and diesel technology in general.

Back in 2015, VW admitted to using illegal software to rig diesel engine tests in the United States, something that ended up costing them more than €32 billion ($39 billion) in fines, legal fees, and recalls. Their legal woes started in September of that year when the EPA got wind of what was happening during laboratory diesel emissions testing as far as the carmaker’s turbocharged direct injection diesel units (TDI) were concerned.

VW used software to manipulate those tests, which impacted roughly 11 million cars worldwide (500,000 of which were in the U.S.)—model years 2009 through 2015. On the bright side, this incident resulted in the electric car industry expanding tremendously. Had it not been for “Dieselgate,” most likely you wouldn’t be driving a VW ID.3 or an ID.4 right now.