Germany’s transport minister, Alexander Dobrindt, identified the companies concerned as Mercedes, Opel Volkswagen and its subsidiaries Audi and Porsche.
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The Volkswagen announcement follows agreement in a USA federal court in San Francisco on the outlines of a deal with US environmental authorities.
Daimler has begun conducting an internal investigation regarding its diesel exhaust emissions in the USA, at the request of the Department of Justice.
Mitsubishi Motors also confessed to rigging emissions probe on some cars manufactured in Japan.
Volkswagen said on Thursday it had reached an agreement with regulators to offer “substantial compensation” to U.S. owners of some 480,000 illegally polluting diesel cars.
VW said on Friday it would take a?16.2 billion ($18.2 billion) hit to its 2015 results and slash its dividend to help pay for its emissions-test cheating scandal.
After prohibited “defeat device” software was discovered on 500,000 diesel automobiles from VW Group, the business wrote off approximately $7 billion in early 2015 to cover fines and other costs.
Certain emissions control devices are approved by the Environmental Protection Agency, but must be declared as the vehicles are being certified.
Volkswagen AG on Friday said that a diesel emissions-cheating scandal would cost it an astounding US$18.2 billion just for past year, while Daimler AG on Thursday revealed that the US Department of Justice asked the company to investigate irregularities in diesel emissions in its Mercedes brand vehicles. It said it “is cooperating fully with the authorities” and will “investigate possible indications of irregularities and of course take all necessary actions”.
On Thursday, German automaker Volkswagen has finally reached a settlement to fix or buy back almost half a million diesel cars involved in the dieselgate scandal.
But it appeared to be enough to allow Volkswagen to avert a huge trial over how it would deal with the scandal that has already deeply damaged the company.
The so-called “dieselgate” scandal led to the departure of VW’s chief executive Martin Winterkorn.
It hasn’t been ruled out also if the buyback vehicles would be lining up dealerships soon once the scandal dies out, as the agreement is deemed applicable to affected 2.0-liter diesel-powered cars only, according to the news agency. Furthermore, the Group recorded a consolidated loss before and after tax of 1.3 billion and 1.4 billion euros, respectively, the largest in its history.
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“VW’s intentional behaviour has led the agencies and U.S. consumers to be wary of claims and to seek assurances”, said Carl Tobias, chair of law at the University of Richmond, Virginia.
