Deliveries fell 1.5 percent from a year earlier to 885,300 cars, vans and heavy commercial vehicles in September and declined by the same pace to 7.43 million in the first nine months, the Wolfsburg, Germany-based company said Friday in a statement.
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Already from the beginning of October, every VW customer had been able to use the company’s website to check whether their vehicle was affected, simply by typing in the car’s number. Under European Union rules, cars that are cleared in one country are automatically approved across the bloc, so the recall also affects Volkswagen vehicles elsewhere in the union.
The owner of the VW, Audi, Skoda and Seat vehicle brands accounted for 23.3pc of the region’s auto sales last month, down from 23.7pc a year earlier and the company’s weakest showing since March.
On Thursday, Germany’s KBA automotive watchdog reportedly rejected Volkswagen’s initial suggestion of a voluntary recall.
The German vehicle maker has been caught in the biggest scandal in its history after it was revealed in mid-September that it used software that allowed it to manipulate emission results for its diesel cars.
VW had requested European regulators give the automaker the right to recall the diesel vehicles on VW’s terms.
Previously, Volkswagen announced that it would recall 2.4 million cars in Germany alone. “Remedial action on the vehicles will begin in January 2016 – at no cost to our customers”.As we are all well aware, Volkswagen has begun taking the necessary steps to retool their image in the wake of the Dieselgate scandal that has commanded the headlines.
Keep coming back for more updates as Volkswagen is expected to turn in its plan on repairing recalled cars, by November end.
Volkswagen said in the press release that they welcome the swift decision of the KBA in issuing a recall so that a timetable and plan of measures can be implemented. Importantly, all the recalls will be mandatory. The mass-market VW brand most implicated in the scandal, saw sales rise 6.6 percent.
With ongoing investigations within the company and by the government, head of the diesel engine development at Volkswagen, Falko Rudolph, was suspended.
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But the scandal could also have wider repercussions for the German economy as a whole and its pristine engineering reputation, a few experts fear.
