Volkswagen Halts Sale Of Polo Models In India

In September, the domestic sales of German auto major Volkswagen’s India unit is learnt to have dropped, a decline after seven months of consistent growth, theBusiness Standard newspaper reported on 5 October. The company is yet declare its sales volume for September.

In the statement, Volkswagen India said it would like to clarify that the temporary hold on deliveries is not related to the ongoing EA 189 diesel engine controversy. Volkswagen has admitted to installing software aimed at cheating on emissions tests in the US.

Martin Winterkorn, Volkswagen AG’s embattled chief executive officer, stepped down last month in the wake of the scandal engulfing the German auto maker.

The auto major had admitted to the irregularities concerning a particular software used in diesel engines in “some 11 million vehicles worldwide”.

Matthias Müller, the newly appointed chief executive of Volkswagen AG, said that his company will start a global recall of affected vehicles in January and the process will be completed by 2016-end.

The German government has launched an investigation into the allegations. India too has written to apex vehicle-testing agency Automotive Research Association of India (Arai) in Pune to evaluate Volkswagen cars.

Arai is probing if Volkswagen models recalled in the US and Europe are also sold in India. Secondly, it wants the testing agency to check if VW uses the same “defeat device”, the software which was manipulated by VW in the US to fudge emissions data in India. “We shall be able to submit our report by the end of this month,” Rashmi Urdhwareshe, director of Arai said in a phone interview. She declined to provide further details.

Defeat device allowed cars to pass emission control tests by showing much lower levels of pollution than in ordinary use. It hid the fact that the emission levels of diesel cars were 40 times higher than the level of pollutants allowed in the US.

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