Volkswagen rides out impact of new pollution regulations on car sales

Volkswagen posted forecast-beating third quarter profit, weathering a storm of less car sales, more spending and new pollution regulations which dented earnings at competitors Daimler and BMW.

Automakers throughout the world are having hard time to lift investment spending on electric and self-driving vehicles while shouldering heavy investments to rebuild combustion engines to meet more tougher emissions standards.

With an eye on expenses, VW also signaled it was open to alliances in the areas of batteries and autonomous driving consisting specialist competitors like Waymo.

Adjusted operating profit amounted to 3.51 billion euros ($4 billion) in the three months to the end of September, dropping 18.6 percent.

VW shares increased over 4 percent as cost savings assisted to offset reduced vehicle sales.

Weaker sales at Audi and the core VW brand, lead by problems adapting the automaker’s model range to new anti-pollution regulations, and quality problems at Bentley, were also partially offset by higher revenues at Porsche.

“VW delivered a solid quarter despite the sector and self-inflicted disruptions,” experts at Evercore ISI stated on Tuesday.

VW had hard time to adjust to the worldwide harmonized light vehicle test procedure, known as WLTP which took effect earlier month, causing a 3.6 percent reduction in deliveries during the quarter as some car models remained unavailable for sale.