South Korea Orders To Recall 126K Volkswagen Vehicles With Defeat Software

Prosecutors in Audi’s home town of Ingolstadt have launched a preliminary investigation and prosecutors in Braunschweig, near Volkswagen’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, are conducting two investigations.

VW stunned the world with its admission then that it had fitted 11m diesel vehicles with software “defeat devices” created to cheat nitrogen oxide emissions tests.

The ABC reported that Charles Bannister, representing many owners, said the company had no defence and should admit liability.

In a statement the company said the “clarification and solution of the diesel issue” was progressing.

The action “is the result of an admission by officials at Audi A.G., manufacturer of all the engines involved, that the vehicles contain three undisclosed auxiliary emissions control devices”, the agency said in a letter to Volkswagen. Meanwhile, Volkswagen’s Audi division will resubmit a revised version of software that the US Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board has targeted in its latest probe.

Audi chairman Berthold Huber “has expressed no criticism (of Stadler) whatsoever”, a VW spokesman said, citing a “continuous dialogue” between VW and the former IG Metall union chief. Many cars have so-called defeat devices that change the way engines perform and manage emissions for different kinds of driving, and that’s legal, he said.

BERLIN-Volkswagen AG’s (VOW.XE) Audi (NSU.XE) unit said Thursday it has suspended two employees in its technical-development department amid irregularities with emissions of diesel-powered cars.

The engine was designed and put together by Audi at its factory in Neckarsulm, Germany, and has been widely used in VW, Audi and Porsche cars since 2009.

Audi, which made the engines for its vehicles as well as for Porsche and VW, will be discuss this with CARB over the next 45 days, he said. The recall covers 15 models, including the Tiguan, which was the top-selling imported vehicle in South Korea a year ago.