New Delhi: Government will demand answers from Volkswagen after major discrepancies were found in emission tests on its cars, an official said Wednesday, becoming the latest country drawn into the pollution cheating scandal.
The embattled auto giant will be formally asked to explain results of tests carried out on three VW models by the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), the government official said.
The German company sparked global uproar in September when it admitted to fitting sophisticated software in its diesel engines to skew emission testing.
"Testing agency ARAI has found significant variation in emission levels in on-road vehicles of three Volkswagen models compared to laboratory measurements," Ambuj Sharma, additional secretary of the heavy industries ministry, told the Press Trust of India news agency.
Sharma said his ministry will issue the notice to the company over its concerns for diesel models Jetta, Audi A4 and Vento.
An ARAI official told AFP it ran tests on all models made and sold in India.
"We had been tasked to do testing of cars in September. We did rigorous tests and the report is with the government," the official said, requesting not to be named.
Volkswagen has admitted to equipping 11 million of its diesel vehicles with devices designed to cheat official pollution tests, revelations that have sparked global outrage.
On Tuesday, US regulators accused the carmaker of also using the so-called defeat devices on its larger 3.0-litre diesel vehicles, which VW adamantly denied.
The devices turn on pollution controls when cars are undergoing tests and off when they are back on the road, allowing them to spew out harmful levels of nitrogen oxide.
A spokesman for Volkswagen India said it would wait to receive the government's notification before commenting.
Volkswagen India has two factories in the western state of Maharashtra, with a manufacturing capacity of more than 200,000 cars annually.
AFP
