Volkswagen AG (VW) Taiwan on Thursday announced the recall of about 12,000 diesel vehicles that it said are affected by a defeat device in the engine’s software that could cheat emissions test.
VW Taiwan said that it within a few weeks would notify owners of the affected models that are equipped with the problematic EA189 diesel engine, but the company is yet to give a statement over its remedy measures or replacement policy.
The recall order came after the company on Monday last week told the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) that 16 diesel models, or 17,744 VW, Audi, Skoda and VW Commercial vehicles, were equipped with the cheating software.
However, the EPA said that there were about 46,000 vehicles of the 16 affected VW models that were imported between 2004 and last month, and the EPA would look into whether more vehicles were affected than those identified by VW Taiwan.
The EPA said that the difference between its number and the figure VW Taiwan submitted might be due to different calculation methods, as VW Taiwan used the vehicle identification numbers provided by the company’s German headquarters to identify affected vehicles, while the EPA’s method was based on calculating the total number of engines suspected of using the cheating software.
The EPA said if the difference proves irreconcilable, the EPA would have the final say on which models and how many vehicles are affected and should be recalled.
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