Volkswagen was given 45 days to plan a recall of models with diesel V6 engines found to contain software that California regulators consider a possible “defeat device” that can distort emissions tests.
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On Wednesday, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) asked beleaguered German automaker Volkswagen AG (VW) to draft a vehicle recall plan – for fixing its 3-liter diesel engines – by early January 2016.
Volkswagen has been engulfed in scandal since September, when it admitted more than 11 million vehicles worldwide equipped with smaller 2.0-litre diesel engines had the pollution-spoofing software. South Korea is now the only country other than the United States to impose a fine against Volkswagen over the cheating scandal.
The Volkswagen Group this week suggested a fix to the issue of emissions test defeat device, due to which the company had found itself in the centre of an unseemly controversy recently.
Audi is now investigating whether employees in technical development and other departments deliberately manipulated emission-control devices and has suspended two engineers, Stadler said in an interview with the Donaukurier regional newspaper, without giving any further details. The software could detect laboratory testing environments and lower emissions levels to acceptable limits.
In addition to Volkswagen and Audi, the manufacturers or dealers that sell diesel cars in South Korea are: Hyundai, Kia, GM Korea, Renault Samsung, Ssangyong, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo, Peugeot, Ford, Nissan, FCA Korea and Forza Motors Korea, which imports Ferrari cars. Volkswagen says it will take less than an hour to bring 1.6 and 2.0 liter turbodiesel engines in Europe into line with emissions rules.
“Volkswagen is finding its financial footing more quickly than expected”, Dudenhöffer said in an email.
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In Germany, environmental protection groups accused authorities, including the German Transport Ministry, of long tolerating misconstrued listings of nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide and fine particle emissions to the detriment of people such as asthma sufferers as well as the environemnt. The vehicles were mostly those sold in South Korea between 2008 and 2015, and included Tiguan, Golf and Beetle models equipped with the EA189 diesel engine. Cars with 2-liter diesel motors can be repaired by simply updating the engine-control software, the company said.
