Ambuj Sharma, additional secretary in the Ministry of Heavy Industries, told Automotive News that the recall to remove cheating software installed on Volkswagen’s TDI models would also need to be removed from Audis and Skodas.
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In a press release issued here on Thursday, the company has sought to “clarify its position, the outcome and the way forward on the EA 189 diesel engine topic” after its meetings with the Government and ARAI (Automotive Research Association of India).
Today, Volkswagen Group India announced a recall of 3,23,700 cars across three brands, making it the largest recall in the history of Indian auto industry.
“Volkswagen Group India remains fully committed to the Indian market and will not deviate from its future planned investments, product plans and launches”, the company said.
The cheating software appears to be limited to diesel vehicles, which Volkswagen is not allowing dealers to sell until it can deliver fixes.
The Volkswagen recall affects cars manufactured from 2008 till end of November 2015 and include 198,500 cars from Volkswagen, 88,700 cars from Skoda, and 36,500 cars from Audi.
“Volkswagen is working tirelessly on an approved remedy for the affected TDI vehicles”, Mark McNabb, chief operating officer, Volkswagen of America, said in a statement.
The findings came two months after the carmaker admitted to cheating USA diesel emissions tests and said that up to about 11 million vehicles worldwide could be affected. Together with this, if the allegations are proven true, then chances are that the German vehicle manufacturing company might face some steeper fines, but also more scrutiny from the competent authorities.
“Fitment of such a device may lead to excess NOx emissions on road”, Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises G M Siddeshwara said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. All necessary technical measures will be implemented at no cost to the customers. It is expected that the physical implementation of the hardware system for the 1.6-litre engine will take less than one hour, and in case of the 2.0-litre engine the software upgrade will be completed in as little as 30 minutes.
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The company’s smaller cars suffered the worst dip in sales, with purchases of the Passat sedan plunging 60 percent and the Beetle falling 39 percent last month.
