From CNNMoney.com

FRANKFURT, Aug. 5, 2007 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) — Volkswagen AG is to end its cooperation with DaimlerChrysler (NYSE:DCX) AG and will end the Bluetec diesel campaign started in the US last year in favour of a return to its own TDI branding for diesel vehicles, VW spokesman Hans-Gerd Bode said, confirming a report in the German magazine Wirtshaftswoche.

According to Bodes, the reason for the change can be traced to sharpened US emissions regulations where VW currently has no new diesel products on the market.

‘We will begin in 2008 to offer new diesel vehicles,’ he said.

The report in Wirtschaftswoche said that the cooperation is being ended because the brand Bluetec is associated first-and-foremost with Mercedes, and is therefore problematic for VW.

Bode, however, denied this: ‘We already have 800,000 diesel vehicles running in the US, for that reason we want to go ahead with our TDI brand,’ he said.