Volkswagen to refit vehicles after diesel emissions scandal

The announcement follows Volkswagen – the parent company to Audi, Skoda and Seat – admitting 11 million vehicles in its group with the EA189 diesel engine are equipped with the cheat software device which falsifies emissions output tests.

Germany’s transport minister says it also manipulated tests in Europe, where Volkswagen sells about 40 percent of its vehicles.

The Wolfsburg-based company insisted its vehicles – which have EA 189 engines fitted from around 2009 to this year – are “technically safe and roadworthy”.

Senior Volkswagen officials will examine on Wednesday findings from an internal investigation into its rigging of vehicle emission tests and prepare for an external inquiry, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Details have emerged gradually of how many were made by which VW division.

Also fitted with the suspect software were 5 million VW brand cars, 2.1 million Audis and 1.2 million Skodas.

And it’s far from clear how Volkswagen will persuade them to bring their cars in for the “service measure”, given concerns that engine performance or fuel consumption could suffer.

VW, however, has not confirmed how the modifications of the affected vehicles will take place.

Volkswagen in Sweden said 224,746 vehicles of those brands that had been sold in the Nordic country were affected.

The company said that just over 1.1 million United Kingdom cars are affected, which is 9.9% of the country’s diesel cars.

“Our customers are our highest priority at this time, and we will be contacting them directly once we have an accurate list of the affected vehicles”.

Volkswagen on Tuesday made another managerial change, putting longtime engineer and executive Winfried Vahland in charge of a newly created North American Region starting November. 1.

The latest developments in the Volkswagen emissions scandal.

In Brussels, European Union Industry Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska met Tuesday with Volkswagen brand chief Herbert Diess.

With a new CEO at the helm, Volkswagen is trying to overtake of a controversy that became public on September 18 when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Volkswagen had to fix almost half a million cars with software rigged to bypass standards for air pollution. The person said Bienkowska stressed to the Volkswagen executive “the importance to fully cooperate with national authorities”.