VW hires leading self-driving car expert from Apple
Volkswagen has hired one of Apple's top experts on autonomous vehicle technologies, signaling the German auto maker's intent to become a serious player in self-driving cars. Johann Jungwirth was hired by Volkswagen to lead research into advanced technologies as head of its new Digitalisation Strategy Department. He had been at Apple since September 2014, after heading North American R&D for Mercedes Benz. The impact on Apple is hard to assess as Apple hasn't even acknowledged that it is working on an autonomous vehicle.

Volkswagen has hired an expert in self-driving car technology from Apple, sending a signal that it will continue to invest in leading-edge technologies despite the financial burden created by its emissions cheating crisis.

Separately, the company has reached an agreement to largely complete its release of records sought by 47 American state attorneys general by year’s end, people with knowledge of the investigations said. Investigators are examining violations of state law on two fronts for Volkswagen, which in September admitted to installing so-called defeat device software in 11 million diesel cars worldwide that was designed to detect when cars were in laboratory tests and cause the vehicles to lower their emissions of pollutants.

While defeat devices are banned in the United States and Europe, the company said this week that it was still determining “whether the software in question officially constituted a defeat device” under European Union regulations.

Germany’s motor vehicle regulatory agency said on Tuesday that it had ordered Volkswagen to retest 800,000 vehicles in Europe after the company admitted to making false claims about carbon dioxide emissions and fuel economy.