In a letter, signed by Ashish Gupta, Head of After Sales Operations, Volkswagen Passenger Cars and Pankaj Sharma, Head of Sales Operations, sent to the “dealer partners” today, the company asked them “not to physically deliver any Polo vehicle (all variants) with immediate effect till further notice from VW”.
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“We will be coming out with further details”, the spokesperson said, adding that all other models would be available to Indian customers. Soon after this directive, the German carmaker has now issued a release to the media that states that the reason for this “temporary hold” on deliveries is in no way related to the ongoing EA189 diesel engine topic.
This concerns a limited number of cars out of a specific production period, it said, without elaborating.
Volkswagen India produced 20,030 units of Polo between April and August this year. It had sold 13,827 units in the domestic market and exported 6,052 units. Volkswagen wrote a letter to its dealers in the country asking them not to deliver any Polo vehicle. The order, that took immediate effect from Tuesday, has nothing to do with the emission evasion issue and is due to a completely different technical reason, said the company.
Since the whole “Dieselgate” issue is only related to the EA189 diesel engine family, it can’t be said for sure if the Polo’s deliveries have been stopped for emission flouting.
The ARAI was asked to conduct an investigation into the matter, after the automobile manufacturer was caught fudging emission data of its diesel powered cars to bypass strict emission norms in the US.
Any action by the company will depend on the outcome of the inquiry.
The company has a capacity to produce 1.30 lakh cars at its Chakan factory in two shifts.
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Volkswagen is in the process of recalling 11 million vehicles, mostly with EA 189 engine and emission-test defeating software.
