Diesel affair: new scandal at Audi

Author: Marcus Schilling
Date: 02.07.2019

Sale of manipulated vehicles until 2018

According to research by Bayerischer Rundfunk and the newspaper “Handelsblatt”, Audi is said to have sold vehicles with manipulated exhaust technology until the beginning of 2018. According to the report, the manipulation is more serious than previously assumed. Affected are diesel cars with larger Euro 6 engines.

The Federal Motor Transport Authority recalled the models to the workshops until January 2018 with the declaration that the vehicles had installed an illegal switch-off device, the so-called “engine warm-up function”.

According to the KBA’s decisions, Audi had pursued four different exhaust strategies. Bayerischer Rundfunk and Handelsblatt should have access to these reports. According to the reports, the cars emitted fewer pollutants in the test than in road traffic. However the KBA classified only one of the strategies as inadmissible switch-off devices.

For the other three strategies, Audi could decide voluntarily whether to remove them from the software or not. In addition, the KBA did not carry out the tests in-house, but received information from the company. “The KBA did not carry out its own technical tests. The decision will be made on the basis of the files,” the notice states.

This also affects Porsche and VW models, which also have the larger Audi engines. In Germany there are more than 200,000 vehicles. The diesel scandal first came to public attention on 18 September 2015.