Volkswagen ordered to recall vehicles over emission issues in South Korea

Hong Dong-gon, spokesman for the Ministry of Environment, explains the test results on Volkswagen vehicles in Sejong City on Thursday.

CEO “Rupert Stadler must push on with it (the investigation), completely and without regard to individuals”, Peter Mosch, head of Audi’s works council and a member of the Audi supervisory board’s influential steering committee, said in an emailed statement on Thursday.

Volkswagen said that the objective for the development of the technical measures is to achieve the applicable emission targets in each case without any adverse effects on the engine output, fuel consumption and performance; however, as all model variants first have to be measured, the achievement of these targets can not yet be finally confirmed.

The notice from the California Air Resources Board came less than a week after state and federal regulators disclosed that Volkswagen Group automakers installed software to cheat emissions tests on more diesels than initially thought.

The fallout from Volkswagen’s diesel emissions scandal entered a new chapter today after South Korea ordered the carmaker to recall 125,522 vehicles.

Audi had told USA environmental authorities earlier this month that these V6 engines-which are used in Audi sedans and a family of luxury sport-utility vehicles produced by Audi, VW, and Porsche-didn’t comply with US environmental law. Volkswagen needs to submit the recall plan of the affected vehicles within 45 business days.

The environment agency said that it was now carrying out its own investigation into VW’s emissions “defeat device” and would be expanding this to include 15 other manufacturers.

Volkswagen has officially announced “the next step” in reigning in the emissions from its offending EA189 engines caught up in the “dieselgate” emissions scandal.

The global scope of the scandal has put Volkswagen under intense financial pressure.

The recall affects 83,981 Volkswagen and Skoda models sold in Australia, and 16,085 Audi vehicles.

All 8.5 million engines in Europe, including 5.2 million 2.0-litre diesels and 300,000 1.2-litre diesels, will require software updates. But it said it could not determine whether Euro 5 and Euro 6 vehicles with the newer EA 288 diesel engine were similarly equipped, and it called for further investigation.

Volkswagen was not immediately available for comment.