Five million Volkswagen passenger cars have cheating device

Nearly five million Volkswagen passenger cars have the cheat software that lets its cars pass the stringent US emission tests, VW Passenger Cars brand has said in a statement.

Volkswagen AG on Tuesday, had said that nearly 11 million diesel-powered cars, fitted with the Type EA 189 engine, have what is called the “defect device” which lowers emissions when the car detects that it is in a testing environment. The engine later works at full capacity for better performance, in the real world situation, emitting much more nitrogen oxides than what was recorded in the tests.

Volkswagen Passenger Cars in a statement said, “The internal evaluation revealed that approximately five million Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand vehicles are affected worldwide.”

Here are a few models that have been confirmed as carrying the device:

-- Sixth-generation Volkswagen Golf

--Seventh-generation Volkswagen Passat

--First-generation Volkswagen Tiguan

However the company has clarified that all the new Volkswagen Passenger Car brand vehicles that fulfill the EU6 norm valid throughout Europe are not affected”, which includes “the current Golf, Passat and Touran models”. 

Volkswagen Passenger Cars' CEO Dr. Herbert Diess has said: “We are working at full speed on a technical solution that we will present to partners, to our customers and to the public as swiftly as possible.

Volkswagen Passenger Cars is expected to soon bring out a list of the number of vehicles that have the device worldwide.

They added, “The vehicles are and remain technically safe and roadworthy.”