Eight Audi, Porsche, VW models banned in South Korea for emissions cheats
The companies also face millions of dollars in fines.
Although the Volkswagen Group diesel scandal has largely subsided in the US and Europe, it continues to unravel in other parts of the world five years later. The latest news in the emissions-cheating scandal comes out of South Korea after the country named eight models it plans to ban due to emissions cheats.
The models that will no longer be sold in the country are the Audi A6 40 TDI, two Audi A6 50 TDI models, two Audi A7 50 TDI models, the Volkswagen Touareg V6 3.0 TDI, the Volkswagen Touareg 3.0 TDI 4Motion and the Porsche Cayenne , according to The Korea Herald on Tuesday. The South Korean Ministry of Environment found in its investigation that each company had "manipulated pollution control devices" in each of the named models.
Audi-VW Korea said in a release that none of the vehicles with emissions problems are "newly detected" cases and each stem from previous cases made public in Germany. Audi-VW Korea also said it reported the issue to the Ministry in December of 2017. Total, 672 Touaregs, 4,116 A6 TDIs and 2,527 A7 TDIs were sold in the market that did not meet emissions certifications between May 2015 and January 2018. Each car was found to spew 10 times the regulated amount of nitrogen oxide than when the government certified them for sale, per the Ministry.
It's unclear if each car featured a so-called "defeat device" that was the subject of the VW scandal in the US, but the Ministry added "the emission mitigation devices perform at lower levels in driving conditions that are different from those when they were certificated."
Plans are in the works to cancel importation licenses for all eight vehicles, and Audi , Porsche and VW will be presented with corrective action to make sure the 1,261 over-polluting cars will be regulated accordingly. However, the Ministry will also hit the companies with fines that total $9.8 million.
The three VW Group brands came under fire in South Korea in June of 2018 after Germany first detected faulty emissions control systems. The companies then brought forth recall solutions to the Ministry of Environment in November last year. VW-Audi said the Ministry hasn't yet approved the recall fix for the affected cars. In Germany, the state's regulatory bodies approved a software update to bring the models back into regulation.
VW Group has spent billions of dollars globally to pay fines, enact buybacks and scrap schemes, and settle lawsuits that surrounded the sale of diesel vehicles that over-polluted.
Originally published Aug. 22.
Update, Aug. 23: Adds information from VW Korea.
