Volkswagen US sales plummet after emissions scandal

Volkswagen’s US sales for last month were down almost 25 percent from November 2014, bringing the year-over-year sales down more than 4 percent.

According to Automotive News, a continued sales freeze of diesel-powered cars in the U.S.is also responsible for VW’s steepest monthly decline since September 2008.

USA sales of Volkswagen’s Passat sedan fell 60% in November.

Late on December 1, 2015, the Volkswagen Group announced a voluntary recall of 323,700 units of its vehicles in India equipped with diesel engines belonging to the EA 189 engine family, which has been at the centre of the worldwide emissions scandal.

In November, Volkswagen reportedly estimated that it would need to fix about 8.5 million cars in Europe. The company reported flat US sales in September and a slight increase in USA sales in October. Following the ARAI’s probe into the impact of VW dieselgate on India, the German automaker has announced that it will implement technical measures to reduce the emissions of affected cars with EA189 series diesel engines.

Volkswagen has been suffering a global backlash after admitting it rigged software to cheat diesel vehicle emission tests.

“Volkswagen is working tirelessly on an approved remedy for the affected TDI vehicles”, said VoA COO Mark McNabb. These so-called defeat devices showed the vehicle’s nitrogen oxide output met US standards under regulatory testing, but in real driving conditions, the cars produced up to 40 times more.

This is the biggest recall in India, topping Honda Car India’s replacement of faulty airbag inflators in 2.23 lakh vehicles two years ago.

Volkswagen said in a statement that it would present a solution to the ministry and ARAI for approval, and carry out the recall in phases.

VW has a plan for fixing the roughly 567,000 vehicles in the U.S. that contain the emissions-cheating software, and has submitted it to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and California Air Resource Board (CARB) for review.

The cheating software appears to be limited to diesel vehicles, which Volkswagen is not allowing dealers to sell until it can deliver fixes.

Deliveries of the Golf fell by 64 percent for the month, while the Jetta SportWagen (now Golf SportWagen) lost more than half its sales volume. While there is already a technical solution for 1.6-litre and 2.0-litre engines, a solution for the 3-cylinder 1.2-litre diesel engine is still being developed.