At the Detroit auto show last week, VW focused on electric technology—introducing the BUDD-e Concept, a long-range electric van. VW’s new CEO, Matthias Müller, was at the show. During an interview with National Public Radio, Müller noted the company was “truly sorry” for the emissions scandal. But he took issue with the characterization that VW lied to U.S. regulators. Instead he said, “Frankly spoken, it was a technical problem. We made a default, we had…not the right interpretation of the American law. And we had some targets for our technical engineers, and they solved this problem and reached targets with some software solutions which haven’t been compatible to American law. That is the thing. And the other question you mentioned—it was an ethical problem? I cannot understand why you say that…We didn’t lie. We didn’t understand the question first. And then we worked since 2014 to solve the problem.”

On Jan. 8, The New York Times reported that the company had invoked European Union privacy laws in refusing to turn over documents to U.S. regulators. Despite Müller’s promise for “maximum transparency,” shortly after his appointment as CEO, VW cited Germany’s strict privacy laws that limit access to data outside the EU, in this case hampering U.S. investigators’ ability to identify employees who may have known or were responsible for the misconduct.

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