Audi boss held over ‘dieselgate’

GERMAN authorities arrested the head of Volkswagen’s luxury arm Audi yesterday, the most senior company official so far to be detained over the carmaker’s emissions test cheating scandal.

Munich prosecutors, who earlier this month widened their probe into Audi, said Rupert Stadler was being held due to fears he might hinder their investigation into the scandal, plunging Volkswagen into a leadership crisis.

News of the arrest comes as Volkswagen’s new group chief executive, Herbert Diess, is trying to introduce a new leadership structure, which includes Stadler, to speed up a shift towards electric vehicles in the wake of its dieselgate saga.

“His arrest is another low point in VW’s diesel saga,” Evercore ISI analysts, who have criticised the company for being slow to reform, said.

“Almost three years after the diesel scandal broke, it takes police to take action against the Audi chief executive.”

VW admitted in September 2015 to using illegal software to cheat US emissions tests on diesel engines, sparking the biggest crisis in the company’s history.

Stadler was arrested at his home in Ingolstadt in the early hours of yesterday.

“As part of an investigation into diesel affairs and Audi engines, the Munich prosecutor’s office executed an arrest warrant against Mr Professor Rupert Stadler on June 18 2018,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

A judge in Germany had ordered that Stadler be remanded in custody, it said, to prevent him from obstructing or hindering the diesel investigation.