German Carmaker Volkswagen Posts its first drop in VW brand sales in 11 years

German carmaker Volkswagen has posted its first drop in VW brand sales in 11 years as the company continues to cope with its emissions scandal. 

Sales of VW brand cars fell 4.8% in 2015 to 5.82 million cars from 6.12 million a year earlier.

Falling demand in China and US added to the losses as orders fell in December.

VW has promised it will have a fix in the coming weeks for the millions of US cars with defeat devices that disguised emission levels in diesel cars.

Sales began declining after the scandal came to light in September. Deliveries fell 5.3% in October, 2.4% in November and 7.9% in December compared with those months the previous year.

The underperformance at VW's largest division by sales and revenue pulled down annual group deliveries by 2% to 9.93 million cars, the first drop in 13 years, VW said.

Note

What is Volkswagen accused of?

It's been dubbed the "diesel dupe". In September 2015,the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA)found  that many VW cars being sold in America had a "defeat device" - or software - in diesel engines that could detect when they were being tested, changing the performance accordingly to improve results. The German car giant has since admitted cheating emissions tests in the US.
VW has had a major push to sell diesel cars in the US, backed by a huge marketing campaign trumpeting its cars' low emissions. The EPA's findings cover 482,000 cars in the US only, including the VW-manufactured Audi A3, and the VW models Jetta, Beetle, Golf and Passat. But VW has admitted that about 11 million cars worldwide, including eight million in Europe, are fitted with the so-called "defeat device".
The company has also been accused by the EPA of modifying software on the 3 litre diesel engines fitted to some Porsche and Audi as well as VW models. VW has denied the claims, which affect at least 10,000 vehicles.
In November, VW said it had found "irregularities" in tests to measure carbon dioxide emission levels  that could affect about 800,000 cars in Europe - including petrol vehicles. However, in December it said that following investigations, it had established that this only affected about 36,000 of the cars it produces each year