VW to recall 8.5m diesel cars amid emissions scandal

A mandatory recall will speed the process, which Volkswagen has said will take until the end of next year, and give authorities more control. The spokesman for the authority said it would monitor the recall.

Volkswagen said the fix will be free for customers who can enter their car’s serial number through Volkswagen’s website to determine if the vehicle has the so-called defeat device.

In prepared remarks, Horn said the events are deeply troubling and that the auto giant has broken the trust of its customers, dealerships and employees, as well as the public and regulators. “The KBA will monitor the start of the recall action and its progress”, Dobrindt told reporters in Berlin.

Dobrindt refrained from publicly criticizing Volkswagen, saying cooperation with the German automaker was “extraordinarily good”.

The recall is to replace the cheating software that manipulates the vehicles’ real emission tests.

However, he also warned that the hardware changes required to fix a few of the cars may not be ready until September 2016.

The group of recalled vehicles is about a third of the cars Volkswagen has sold in the continent since 2008, Bloomberg said.

Meanwhile, the EPA has begun examining the software used on 2016 versions of a few diesels that Volkswagen use different software code also aimed at fooling emissions tests.

A few analysts have said the scandal could cost Volkswagen as much as 35 billion euros ($40 billion) to cover vehicle refits, regulatory fines and lawsuits.

Volkswagen has said that a few managers had been suspended, but said the report Wednesday of up to 30 “lacks any basis”.

Germany may be a framework for what VW will need to do throughout Europe, where the cheating software is installed on a few 8 million vehicles. Dobrindt said only 2.4 million needed to be recalled because the other 400,000 were no longer on the roads.

“Such a unified procedure would be in the European spirit as well as in the interests of customers”.

Elsewhere, Italian authorities have searched the headquarters of Volkswagen Italia as part of a local investigation into the emissions testing scandal.