The chief executive of German carmaker Audi, Rupert Stadler, has been arrested in connection with an investigation into the diesel emissions scandal.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Volkswagen, which owns Audi, confirmed he was being held.<\/p>\n
Munich prosecutors said they had acted because of a risk that Mr Stadler might seek to suppress evidence.<\/p>\n
The scandal erupted three years ago, when it emerged that cars had been fitted with devices designed to cheat emissions tests.<\/p>\n
The devices were initially found in VW’s cars, but its Audi subsidiary has also been embroiled in the scandal.<\/p>\n
Last month, it admitted that another 60,000 A6 and A7 models with diesel engines have emission software issues.<\/p>\n
That is on top of the 850,000 recalled last year by Audi, of which only some have been found to require modification.<\/p>\n
Munich prosecutors said Mr Stadler would be questioned by Wednesday, once he had spoken to his lawyers.<\/p>\n
The so-called dieselgate emissions scandal first came to light in September 2015.<\/p>\n
Volkswagen admitted that nearly 600,000 cars sold in the US were fitted with “defeat devices” designed to circumvent emissions tests.<\/p>\n
The carmaker said it had installed software in 11 million diesel cars worldwide that could tell when they were being tested and cut their emissions.<\/p>\n
On the open road, untested, the level of emissions would in practice be far higher – up to 40 times as bad as recorded under laboratory conditions.<\/p>\n
Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"