Around 8.5 million diesel vehicles sold by Volkswagen over the past few years in Europe will be recalled, following the testing scandal of a few weeks ago, according to reports.
Considering that the German company actually sold around 11 million diesel vehicles in Europe that are known to have featured the software that allows for fraudulent testing cycle performance, that interestingly means there will still be several million such vehicles not recalled (yet anyways).
The recall will be undertaken via a timeline recently approved by the country’s Federal Motor Transport Authority — it’s currently planned that “fixes” will begin in January 2016.
Green Car Reports provides more:
Volkswagen says it will recall a total of 8.5 million TDI models in Europe that are equipped with the EA189 four-cylinder engine, including a confirmed 2.4 million just in Germany. Other European countries will clarify in turn exactly which EA189-equipped models within their jurisdictions are affected.
Volkswagen will contact European customers with affected cars directly, and is setting up websites so customers can check to see if their cars are being recalled.
The company is not discussing exactly how it will address the emissions issue, either in Europe or in North America, but says fixes can involve “software as well as hardware measures,” depending on the model. This week’s agreement to mount a massive recall across Europe does not include approximately 482,000 similar vehicles in the United States that have been identified as having the same emissions “defeat device” software.
The models being recalled include: all 2009–2015 model years of the diesel Volkswagen Golf, Beetle, Jetta, Jetta SportWagen, and the Audi A3 TDI.
The company is apparently currently considering the option of simply buying back affected vehicles in the US.