The Volkswagen scandal deepened on Tuesday after the German car giant admitted it had problems involving carbon dioxide emissions on 800,000 cars — including some with petrol engines.
While the Volkswagen Group can’t confirm which models are affected - or whether any Irish vehicles are involved - the latest news raises serious concerns for Irish owners as the motor tax regime here is based on CO2 emissions.
Any changes to a car’s official emissions figure could lead to a change in the motor tax due and potentially a retrospective payment of Vehicle Registration Tax paid on the initial purchase of an affected car.
The problems are a different issue from the scandal VW has been facing since September over the excess Nitrogen Oxide emissions from up to 11 million vehicles worldwide fitted with software designed to cheat at emissions tests.
Carbon Dioxide emissions depend on a vehicle’s fuel consumption, not its emissions-control systems.
The company said it had discovered the latest issue during “comprehensive investigations” it had promised following the emergence of the NOx cheating scandal.
The statement gave no information about the brands affected or whether they involved diesel or petrol engines.
“During the course of internal investigations, unexplained inconsistencies were found when determining Type Approval CO2 levels,” a company statement said. “Based on present knowledge around 800,000 vehicles from the Volkswagen Group are affected.”
However, the company later said that the vehicles affected were “mostly diesels,” although for the first time petrol engines were involved in the scandal. The vehicles’ emissions were understated and fuel economy overstated.
The vehicles all have 1.4 litre engines — they are mostly VW Polos and Golfs but also some Audi, Seat and Skoda cars.
VW’s figures for the latest issue suggest it expects the CO2 emissions problem to be far more expensive per vehicle to rectify than the NOx emissions problem, which in some vehicles requires only a software update. The €2 billion for 800,000 vehicles compares with the €6.5 billion write-off that VW announced in September for the costs of putting right 11 million vehicles emitting excessive NOx, 116,000 of which are in Ireland.
There was no immediate comment on the latest revelations from the US’s Environmental Protection Agency, which first revealed the NOx issues on September 18th. The EPA held a conference call on Monday to reveal problems it had discovered with a new set of VW-group diesels — sports utility vehicles with three-litre engines — without mentioning CO2 problems.
VW’s shares fell 1.6 per cent in Frankfurt — to €121.05 — after the CO2 problems were announced just after 7pm local time.
- (Additional reporting: Financial Times)
