GENEVA, Feb 29 (Reuters) - Volkswagen Chief Executive Matthias Mueller believes that Europe's biggest carmaker will succeed in winning back customers' trust after admitting to rigging emissions tests for millions of its cars.
"We have started a lot of customer-relation programmes, I'm very convinced it will work very well," Mueller told Reuters TV ahead of the Geneva auto show on Monday.
The scandal over rigged emissions tests, which affects up to 11 million vehicles, is VW's biggest business crisis in its 78-year history.
The U.S. Justice Department has sued VW for up to $46 billion for violating U.S. environmental laws, and VW is still in talks to agree on a fix for nearly 600,000 diesel vehicles in the United States.
But Mueller told Reuters TV that he did not believe that U.S. authorities were being too hard on VW.
"No, I cannot suppose they are too hard but they are investigating very strongly. That's ok, also from our point of view," he said, adding VW was in a constructive dialogue with U.S. officials. (Reporting by Reuters TV; Writing by Andreas Cremer and Maria Sheahan; Editing by Jonathan Gould)