Volkswagen says its CO₂ issue is ‘largely concluded’, with an internal investigation finding few models over and above the widely publicised misrepresented diesel engines emissions figures.
The announcement comes as the company has gained European approval for technical adjustments to be made to cars with diesel engines giving false CO₂ outputs. The mix of software and hardware updates will be made to affected cars during 2016.
Following the initial reports of problems with the EA189 diesel engine, it later emerged that up to 800,000 further cars could have been affected by false reporting of CO₂ and fuel economy figures, and an internal investigation was started.
Volkswagen now says that despite initial fears, most of its variants have emissions outputs that do correspond to official figures, and has downplayed the issue to nine model variants of the Volkswagen brand. Independent tests will be carried out where fuel consumption deviations have been found, and official figures amended accordingly.
Volkswagen’s internal investigation found that the nine cars affected showed deviation from the claimed figures of “a few grams of CO₂ on average”, corresponding to an increased consumption of around 0.1-0.2 l/100km on the NEDC, the company said. Four of the nine vehicles included in the latest findings are petrol-engined models.
Audi, Skoda and Seat are undergoing similar procedures with the relevant approval authorities, said Volkswagen in its statement.
December 17, 2015