ARAI finds that Volkswagens diesel engines violate BS stage IV emission norms in India
The Automotive Research Association of India or ARAI had conducted their own investigations into the Volkswagen emissions scandal to see if the company had cheated on the emission tests in India. ARAI's findings have revealed that Volkswagen's diesel engines do violate the BS stage IV emission norms. According to sources, ARAI has now widened the extent of its research to include the diesel engines manufactured in India, as well as the diesel engines that were imported before 2015. Volkswagen India had started assembling the 1.5-litre TDI motor locally at their Chakan facility in 2014. The petrol engines are still being imported.
At the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show, VW's new CEO for passenger cars, Herbert Diess, stated that the India-made diesel cars were also affected and hoped that Indian authorities would accept Volkswagen's plans to fix this issue by releasing a new software or by changing the hardware.
The cars affected by this are the 1.5-litre Polo TDI, Polo Cross TDI and Vento TDI, and the 2.0-litre Jetta and Passat. These cars run the same EA 189 family of engines, which use the defeat device to manipulate emission results. Sources say that Volkswagen is likely to recall over one lakh units of these cars before November 8, of which 20,000 units use India-made diesel engines.
"The investigations to find out if the cars sold with EA 189 engines are impacted due to the software or not in the Indian context are underway in the headquarters in Germany as well as here in India and we are waiting for these results. As soon as we have these results, we will communicate further," stated a spokesperson from Volkswagen. VW India had issued a statement recently which said that they have received a notice from ARAI and they will respond to the same by November 30, 2015.
Source: Farah Bookwala Vhora and CNBC-TV18
More from OVERDRIVE on the Volkswagen emissions scandal:
Porsche's year-end profits could be affected by the Volkswagen emissions scandal
Volkswagen meets Ministry of Heavy Industries and ARAI to update on emissions issue
VW diesel emissions scandal: Audi says 2.1 million cars affected, Seat and Skoda next in line
.