Emissions scandal: Volkswagen to refit 11m cars

Berlin

Volkswagen announced plans yesterday to refit up to 11 million vehicles and overhaul its namesake brand following the scandal over its rigging of emissions tests.

New Chief Executive Matthias Mueller said the German carmaker would ask customers "in the next few days" to have diesel vehicles that contained illegal software refitted, a move which some analysts have said could cost more than $6.5 billion.

Europe's biggest carmaker has admitted cheating in diesel emissions tests in the United States and Germany's transport minister says it also manipulated them in Europe, where Volkswagen sells about 40 per cent of its vehicles.

Volkswagen did not say how the planned refit would make cars with the "cheat" software comply with regulations, or how this might affect vehicles' mileage or efficiency, which are important considerations for customers.

Germany's KBA watchdog had set Volkswagen an Oct. 7 deadline for it to present a plan to bring diesel emissions into line with the law.

Germany's transport ministry said yesterday it had set up an investigative commission and it was holding talks with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over the scandal.

Investors are impatient for answers too.

Volkswagen said previously about 11 million vehicles were fitted with software capable of cheating emissions tests, including 5 million at its VW brand, 2.1 million at luxury brand Audi, 1.2 million at Czech division Skoda and 1.8 million light commercial vehicles.

Refitting 11 million cars would be among the biggest recalls in history by a single automaker, similar in scale to Toyota's recall of more than 10 million vehicles between 2009 and 2010 over acceleration problems, though dwarfed by the number recalled by multiple carmakers due to faulty Takata airbags.

Volkswagen sold 10.1 million vehicles in the whole of 2014.