Working through the diesel issue will dominate activities at Volkswagen this year. “This will remain our most important task until the very last vehicle has been put in order,” said Matthias Müller, chairman of the board of management of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft.

“With the software manipulation of diesel engines at Volkswagen, rules were broken and ethical boundaries overstepped. “We sincerely regret this. Also because we know that we have disappointed many people – people who have placed their trust in Volkswagen. We stand by our responsibility. And we are doing everything in our power to regain trust.”

The Volkswagen Group delivered 9.9m vehicles to customers in fiscal year 2015 – 2.0% fewer than in the previous year. The diesel issue led to total exceptional charges of €16.2 billion in 2015, which were recognised in the operating result. This figure includes provisions for pending technical modifications to the affected diesel engines and repurchases that come to €7.8 billion in total. Another €7.0 billion has been set aside as a provision for legal risks worldwide.

The Group is currently working on the further development of its realignment strategy, to be presented mid-year. This will focus on the major fields of future importance in the industry – such as digitalisation, networking, e-mobility and new mobility services. Volkswagen is already addressing all of these fields, for example with thee-offensive launched. “In the future, however, we will do this in a much more systematic and focused manner. Our Strategy 2025 will provide the framework for this,” Müller announced.

Müller reaffirmed the goal of playing a key role in e-mobility, with the Volkswagen Group planning to launch over 20 additional models by 2020. The Volkswagen brand is currently developing its own architecture especially fore-vehicles in the form of its Modular Electrification Toolkit, or MEB for short.