stefan knirsch 49 who has been audis head of powertrain operations powertrain refers to the engines transmissions and other components that propel vehiclesfrom 2007 to 2013 mr hackenberg was responsible for technical development of cars under the volkswagen brand that is also the period during which volkswagen was developing and marketing the diesel engines that contained illegal softwarethe software detected when cars were undergoing emissions tests and turned up pollution controls at other times the vehicles produced many times the allowed amount of nitrogen oxide a harmful gas audi vehicles with 2 and 3liter diesel engines are among those with software considered illegal in the united statespeter mosch chairman of the audi workers council and a member of the audi supervisory board said late thursday that it was correct for mr hackenberg to leave the company and that it was important to eliminate any uncertainty about who was in chargein light of the current situation we see his decision to resign as an important step forward mr mosch said in a statementmr mosch also called for volkswagen to get to the bottom of who was responsible for the misconduct which has put the company under financial pressure and could lead to job cutsthere are signs that volkswagens business is beginning to suffer sales of volkswagenbrand cars in britain fell 20 percent in november from a year earlier the society of motor manufacturers and traders said on friday general motors vauxhall brand and ford motor appeared to benefit most vauxhall sales rose 26 percent in the month and fords were up 13 percentfurther consequences must now be undertaken so that something like this doesnt happen again mr mosch saidmr hackenberg was credited with developing volkswagens socalled modular tool kit a collection of crucial components including motors that can be shared among different brands in the volkswagen empire besides volkswagen and audi brand cars the company also owns porsche seat and skodamr hackenbergs resignation suggests that audi may be moving more aggressively than the parent company to clarify its role in the emissions cheating scandalaudi retains a degree of independence even though it is part of the volkswagen group and its cars share many parts with other vehicles the company makes audi has its headquarters and a factory in ingolstadt a city on the danube between nuremberg and munichaudi also has its own supervisory board and there is a degree of rivalry between executives in ingolstadt and those in wolfsburg where volkswagen is based