Frankfurt : German auto giant Volkswagen booked its first quarterly loss in 15 years in the wake of the global pollution-cheating scandal which also forced it to lower its full-year forecasts. The group also warned of further “considerable financial charges” related to legal proceedings over the scam, over which it is the subject of criminal probes in the United States and Germany. Volkswagen, which has just been overtaken by Toyota as the world’s biggest carmaker in terms of sales, ran up a net loss of 1.673 billion euros (USD 1.85 billion) in the three-month period, compared with a profit of 2.971 billion euros a year earlier.
The losses were due to a charge of 6.7 billion euros VW took to cover the initial costs of the scandal, primarily a recall of all vehicles fitted with the software scheduled to begin in January 2016. -AFP