German authorities have given the VW Group just more than a week to prove that all its cars meet emissions regulations, amid reports in the national press that the company was warned as long ago as 2007 that using the software that cheated testing processes on production cars would be illegal.
According to a report in German national newspaper Bild am Sonntag, Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt (KBA), the federal motoring authority, has told VW to demonstrate how it will meet emissions standards without using illegal software by October 7. If it fails to do so, the KBA has warned it could withdraw type approval for the affected models in Germany.
The newspaper is also reporting that it has seen a letter in which VW supplier Bosch warned the VW Group in 2007 that the software was illegal for road use, and highlighting that it was only being made available for test purposes.
Meanwhile, another German newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, has made claims that a Volkswagen technician raised concerns about illegal practices in connection with emissions levels in 2011. Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung cited VW’s internal investigators as the source of its information.
Glenn Noronha
Dhruv Dhaka
Dipan Sur
Hormazd Sorabjee
