The eight diesel cars from Volkswagen Group involve Volkswagen Touareg, Audi A6, Audi A7 and Porsche Cayenne
This past Tuesday, the South Korean Environmental ministry officially stated that it is banning the sales of eight diesel-engined Volkswagen Group vehicles. It involves Volkswagen, Porsche and Audi for breaching emission standards. Furthermore, the government authorities will take the trio to court and seek penalties and compensations.
The penalties will reportedly reach around 6.5 million USD for Audi and 3.3 million USD for Porsche and the investigation on the individual companies will commence shortly. Just as the emission cheating scandal that stunned the automotive world in 2015, a probe indicated that the German brands used mitigation devices to manipulate the exhaust outputs.
The eight diesel-powered models from Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche were retailed between May 2015 and January 2018, and they account to 1,261 units in total. The vehicles in question are Volkswagen Touareg 3.0 TDI 4 Motion, Volkswagen Touareg V6 3.0 TDI BMT, Audi A6 40 TDI Quattro, two versions of Audi A6 50 TDI Quattro, two versions of Audi A7 50 TDI Quattro and Porsche Cayenne diesel that was discontinued late last year.
The authorities claim that the eight models emitted ten times more NOx than usual. Using the control devices, they were programmed to show lower levels sticking by the South Korean regulations. Consequently, plans are in place to cancel the import certification of the diesel models from Volkswagen AG.
It must be noted that a district court in Germany recently ruled that Volkswagen’s software to fix the models involved in the defeat device scandal contains another cheating device. The software was said to work only under outside temperatures between 10 and 32 degree Celsius.
If the temperatures do not come under this bracket, the vehicle would again violate the pollution standards by emitting more NOx. Volkswagen will likely face more fines due to the new cheating device and it comes at a time when the brand has embarked on a new strategy with huge investment to launch a range of promising electric vehicles under the I.D brand.