By Christoph Rauwald, Bloomberg News
FRANKFURT, Germany (Jan. 22, 2016) — Volkswagen A.G. is changing the way it creates new models by giving developers more responsibility for overseeing a car from concept through the end of production to help prevent another diesel emissions scandal.
Volkswagen's namesake brand will give development teams control of a vehicle's technology, quality and cost for the first time, the company said Jan. 20 in a statement. That's a departure from the previous development process, which spread responsibility across layers of committees and funneled final approval through top executives.
“We have to ensure that the corporate responsibility for each vehicle project is clearly assigned,” Herbert Diess, chief of the VW brand, said in the statement. “This step represents a core element of ‘New Volkswagen.'”