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But the employee, Martin Tripp, told The Washington Post that he did not tamper with internal systems and is instead a whistleblower who spoke out after seeing "some really scary things" inside the company, including dangerously punctured batteries installed in cars.

Automotive recalls are steadily on the rise, and federal statistics estimate that about 30 percent of them go without being repaired. Recalls such as the widespread Takata airbag recall regularly make the news, and automotive website Jalopnik recently investigated the story of a recalled Ford Escape that caught on fire even though it wasn't running, burning up an entire cargo ship.

Audi's CEO Rupert Stadler is "ready to talk" after being arrested in connection with the emissions-cheating scandal. Meanwhile, the company's executive board is deliberating his replacement.

Being in charge of a business during a scandal that misled consumers, spewed pollutants into the atmosphere and helped incinerate billions of your parent company's capital might get you sacked at many places. At Volkswagen AG, it gets you promoted.

When evidence emerged that Audi had played a major role in developing illegal emissions software on Mr. Stadler's watch, he and most other top executives kept their jobs.

A German court ruled on Friday that investors pushing for damages over a sharp fall in Volkswagen shares after the carmaker disclosed emissions cheating in 2015 can also seek redress from majority shareholder Porsche SE.

Most people know about the largest auto-related recall in history, prompted by defective Takata airbags in 37 million vehicles, but millions of other vehicles are also under recall.

Volkswagen has been fined 1 billion euros ($1.18 billion) by public prosecutors in Germany over diesel emissions cheating and said it will accept the fine, therefore admitting responsibility for the scandal.

The auto industry's diesel emissions scandal continues to spread its noxious tentacles. According to a new Bloomberg report, the latest company in the crosshairs is Daimler, makers of Mercedes-Benz. The automaker is being ordered by the Germany government to recall 774,000 diesel vehicles in Europe over concerns stemming from "prohibited shutoff devices."

German prosecutors on Monday widened an emissions cheating probe into Volkswagen's luxury carmaker Audi to include the brand's Chief Executive Rupert Stadler among the suspects accused of fraud and false advertising.

Former Volkswagen Group CEO Martin Winterkorn has been asked to testify before a German court in connection with a lawsuit seeking damages from the automaker over its emissions cheating scandal, German paper Bild reported.

To avoid a potential $300 million in civil penalties, Ford has agreed to settle a class action claiming it knowingly sold vehicles with defective and unsafe touch screen systems.

The German automaker Volkswagen is promising that it will no longer support the use of animals in testing the effects of diesel exhaust, as the company tries to move past an emissions-cheating scandal in which it was found to have helped finance experiments on monkeys.

The ban, which came into effect on Thursday, only affects two roads, but it's a big move nonetheless in a country where the auto industry is both key to the economy and a focal point for the "Dieselgate" emissions scandal. The diesel engine, in fact, is named after Rudolf Diesel, the German engineer who invented it.

Today's automotive industry being as it is, collaboration between Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Volkswagen is a given in more than one areas. The three have even been involved together in the European Research Group on Environment and Health in the Transport Sector, an organization linked with an emissions experiment on 10 macaque monkeys in the U.S.

The issue can be triggered when the car accelerates while operating under cruise control, which it might do in order to maintain its speed while climbing a hill, the company said. This could potentially cause a short circuit.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is getting a double dose of bad news as the company has been hit with an amended class-action lawsuit which claims at least two defeat devices were installed in 2007-2012 Ram 2500 and 3500 trucks equipped with the Cummins 6.7-liter diesel engine.

The chief executive of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV admonished a company spokesman in 2015 for saying the company didn't rig its vehicles with illegal software to pass emissions tests, according to documents filed in a related lawsuit.

The emissions scandal catapulted the native Austrian to the pole position at the carmaker. But investigations at Volkswagen and his former employer, BMW, pose a risk to his stellar career.

Audi has admitted that another 60,000 A6 and A7 models with diesel engines have emission software issues. The number is on top of the 850,000 recalled last year by the Volkswagen subsidiary, of which only some have been found to require modification. The so-called dieselgate emissions scandal first came to light in September 2015.