 "Hans Dieter Poetsch")
Hans Dieter Poetsch, the incoming chairman of Volkswagen, sees the scandal around the rigging of emission tests as a threat to the firm's viability albeit a surmountable one, a newspaper quoted him as saying.
At an internal company meeting this week at the Volkswagen headquarters in Wolfsburg, Poetsch described the situation as an "existence-threatening crisis for the company", Germany's Welt am Sonntag reported in a release ahead of Sunday's publication.
Poetsch also said that he believed Volkswagen could overcome the crisis, the newspaper said.
A Volkswagen spokesman declined to comment on the report.
Europe's largest carmaker has admitted cheating in diesel emissions tests in the United States and Germany's transport minister says it also manipulated them in Europe, where Volkswagen sells about 40 per cent of its vehicles.
Volkswagen has set aside Euro 6.5 billion ($7.3 billion) to help cover the cost of the scandal, but some analysts think the final bill could be much higher.
Moody's, S&P and Fitch have all put negative outlooks on their credit ratings, meaning they see a risk of downgrades.
Citing an unnamed insider, Welt am Sonntag said Volkswagen's planned investment budget of Euro 100 billion through to 2018 was under review for cuts. Volkswagen declined to comment.
Sources close to the board told Reuters this week the supervisory board was looking at ways to make savings to try to avoid a downgrade in the company's credit ratings, which would lead to higher borrowing costs.
They said, however, it was not talking about asset sales, after calls from some analysts for the firm to sell its trucks business or brands such as Bugatti, Ducati and Lamborghini.
Volkswagen has said it will refit up to 11 million diesel vehicles that contain software capable of cheating emission tests. It also faces potential fines from regulators and prosecutors, lawsuits from consumers and investors, and a possible hit to sales from the damage to its reputation.
A survey by German market research firm Puls showed 41 per cent of consumers see the brand as damaged for the long term, while 11 per cent say they no longer want to buy a Volkswagen, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung paper reported.
Volkawagen scandal hasn't hurt Germany's reputation: Angela Merkel
German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a German radio station that the emissions scandal around German carmaker Volkswagen was "drastic" but the damage was not so great that Germany was no longer deemed a good place to do business.
"I believe the reputation of the German economy and the trust in the German economy has not been shaken by this to the extent that we are no longer considered a good business location," she told Deutschlandfunk, according to the text of an interview due to be broadcast later on Sunday. Volkswagen's supervisory board will hold an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday at which finance chief Hans Dieter Poetsch is expected to be appointed as new head of the 20-member controlling panel, two sources said on Sunday
