Head of engine and transmission at Porsche arrested over emissions fraud

Following the searches carried out last week at the headquarters of Porsche AG in search of evidence linking the German brand to the manipulation of fuel consumption and emissions measurement software, the German police have arrested Joerg Kerner, head of engine and transmission development at Porsche. Reuters reports that, according to people familiar with the case, the German police are holding the German executive in pre-trial detention to prevent the risk of flight.

The arrest follows the searches carried out by German police at ten Porsche facilities in the states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, in southern Germany. Following those searches, investigators considered implicated in the scheme a board member, a senior executive of the car brand, and a former employee of the company. The searches involved 33 prosecutors from Stuttgart and Munich, as well as 160 German police officers.

Kerner was one of three Porsche employees, current and former, whom German prosecutors implicated during the searches carried out earlier last week at the headquarters of Audi and Porsche, according to the Stuttgart prosecutor’s office. Those searches took place more than two years after the Group Volkswagen admitted to cheating on emissions tests conducted in the United States.

Kerner, two other executives of the German brand, and Porsche itself are suspected of knowing that the engines developed by Audi had been subject to certain manipulations in their engine management software to pass emissions and consumption tests fraudulently, according to Oliver Blume, current chief executive of Porsche, in a letter addressed to all staff of the German sports car brand, which Reuters saw on Friday. “We reject these accusations and will do everything possible to clarify the matter,” Blume said in the communication to his workforce.

Early in 2018, German prosecutors widened their investigation into emissions fraud at Audi, the brand responsible for the development of the 3.0-litre V6 diesel engine that was fitted to approximately 80,000 units of various Audi and Porsche models in which fraudulent software was detected during the investigation being carried out by both US and German authorities.

§h33§Jörg Kerner has headed the Porsche powertrain development division§h34§ at the Weissach Development Centre in Stuttgart since 2011, a role he has combined since that same date with the development of engines and transmissions at Volkswagen. Previously, Kerner worked for Robert Bosch GmbH from 1986 to 2004. His responsibilities there included several projects for Audi in the area of gasoline engine control and calibration. Kerner joined Audi AG in 2004, where he created the engine and transmission design department, the software department and the functional development division, managing it until 2009. He subsequently took charge of the powertrain electrification division at Audi.