Renault shares plunge after offices raided in emissions probe

Shares in carmaker Renault plunged 20% after French anti-fraud investigators raided several production sites as part of their investigation into faked emissions tests.

The share-price fall wiped more than €2 billion (£1.51 billion) off the value of the car giant.

Renault confirmed the raids and said it was co-operating with the investigation. The company said raids had taken place at Lardy, Guyancourt and its headquarters in Boulogne-Billancourt, with computers seized and later handed back.

It said its own tests had shown no signs of cheat software.

Just over 75,000 Renaults were bought by drivers in the UK last year but the total number in the country is far more than that.

Renault union officials said the raids took place last week and targeted sites’ engine-control units, suggesting they were “linked to the consequences of the Volkswagen rigged engines affair”.

Carmakers have been under scrutiny since September when US regulators first revealed VW cheated to make its diesel-driven vehicles appear to create less pollution than they really did.

The German car firm was thrown into a crisis. Chief executive Martin Winterkorn was forced to resign and the company set aside €6.7 billion to fix up to 11 million cars worldwide, of which 1.2 million are in the UK.