Volkswagen confirmed that more than 11 million diesel vehicles that are allegedly fitted with the ‘cheat device’ will be refitted and corrected by contacting the owners of the vehicles directly.
The affected models are those with the Type EA 189 diesel engines and include the 1st generation VW Tiguan (or the 7th generation VW Passat) and the 6th generation VW Golf.
In Houston, where these correction plans are afoot after the new chief executive Matthias Mueller was appointed recently, the air quality is much below national levels and the county attorneys hold VW responsible for this as it skirted the environmental and emissions regulations by fitting ‘cheat devices’ in their vehicles.
The new chief executive told the senior management that an ambitious strategy to correct this error is already being charted out. He said, ‘We will only be able to make progress in steps and there will be setbacks,’ he said. In the coming days, the owners will be able to know if their cars are affected while technical solutions to the issues will be offered in the month of October.
It is pertinent to note here, that despite the fact that the scandal broke out nearly a fortnight ago, these ‘rogue’ vehicles are still available for sale, reports Rapid news network. These ‘cheat devices’ were fitted into VW commercial and non-commercial vehicles and also in the cars of Skoda, Audi and Seat from the 2009 models onwards.
The Managing Director of VW Ireland has been summoned to answer queries by the Oireachtas transport committee regarding the scandal. The ‘defeat device’-fitted cars are capable of emitting nitrogen dioxides up to 40 times the permitted limits, under normal driving conditions.
Nearly half the number of UK registered vehicles (about 508, 278 units) which are implicated in the scam are from the Volkswagen stable of passenger cars. The cost of the refitting and correction is projected to be over $6.5 billion, according to analysts.
Earlier, Audi also admitted that about 21 million of their vehicles across the globe have been fitted with the illegal emission cheating software/device. The former CEO of Volkswagen, Martin Winterkorn, had resigned earlier taking moral responsibility for the emission scandal which was uncovered when inspectors from the US Environmental Protection Agency found these ‘cheat devices’ during an inspection at the company’s production plants.
