Research heads of Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche suspended

German auto giant Volkswagen has suspended the R&D chiefs of its core VW brand, luxury division Audi and sports-car maker Porsche, sources familiar with the matter said on Monday.

Volkswagen has suspended the research and development chiefs of its core VW brand, luxury division Audi and sportscar maker Porsche, sources familiar with the matter said on Monday. The German auto group is engulfed in a scandal over cheating emission tests in nearly 11 million cars.

The headquarters of Volkswagen in Wolfsburg, central Germany. (AFP)

The carmaker’s supervisory board last Friday agreed to put a number of employees on leave until the details of VW’s emissions cheating scandal were cleared up, without providing names.

This is another shake-up in the organisation after the VW CEO Martin Winterkorn was replaced by Porsche chief executive Matthias Muller.

Reuters reported last Thursday that VW would fire top brand executives as it tries to recover from the scandal.

Volkswagen has accepted to have cheated the emission tests by manipulating their softwares so as to pass nearly 11 million over-polluting cars through the pollution screening tests as clean.

Audi, VW and Porsche declined comment.