The German automaker Volkswagen is promising that it will no longer support the use of animals in testing the effects of diesel exhaust, as the company tries to move past an emissions-cheating scandal in which it was found to have helped finance experiments on monkeys.

The pledge was made in a letter to the German branch of the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. It is part of a push by Volkswagen, Europe’s biggest car manufacturer, to cope with the toll of a scheme that has resulted in tens of billions of dollars in settlements and fines, the dismissal of successive chief executives and the arrest and imprisonment of top company officials.

The cheating, which involved Volkswagen’s illegally rigging the software on millions of vehicles to make it seem as if they complied with pollution standards, has also caused a major shift in the public’s perception of diesel. The fuel had been promoted as an environmentally friendly alternative to gasoline, but governments in Europe and elsewhere are increasingly restricting its use.

Volkswagen’s reputation was further tarnished by the revelation that it and other German automakers had financed research on the health effects of diesel exhaust that involved spewing it at 10 macaque monkeys in airtight chambers. The disclosure touched off an uproar, piling pressure on Volkswagen and the other companies.