Frankfurt

GERMAN prosecutors on Monday announced a criminal probe against Volkswagen's (VW) former boss Martin Winterkorn as Volkswagen Group carmakers Audi and Skoda said more than three million of their vehicles were fitted with software designed to dupe emission tests.

The German government piled on the pressure by urging the embattled car giant to outline by Oct 7 how it planned to resolve the crisis that broke after VW revealed that 11 million of its diesel vehicles worldwide are equipped with so-called defeat devices.