“The ministry requested that Audi Volkswagen Korea provide improvement measures for its diesel vehicles’ excessive emissions of NOx in 2011, which the company failed to comply with,” said a Prosecutors’ Office official on Wednesday.
SEOUL, June 16 (Korea Bizwire) – A recent investigation has revealed that Audi Volkswagen Korea ignored the Ministry of Environment’s warning about excessive NOx emissions from the company’s diesel vehicles five years ago.
“The ministry requested that Audi Volkswagen Korea provide improvement measures for its diesel vehicles’ excessive emissions of NOx in 2011, which the company failed to comply with,” said a Prosecutors’ Office official on Wednesday.
According to the Prosecutors’ Office, the ministry detected an excessive amount of NOx emissions from the diesel vehicles in Korea in 2011.
The ministry’s inspection revealed that eight vehicle models from six manufacturers had NOx emissions that were higher than the permissible limits under regular driving conditions. The ministry demanded that the manufacturers reveal the causes of the phenomenon, and provide improvement measures, which all but Audi Volkswagen Korea executed.
Although the company conducted an internal investigation into the issue, it never submitted the results and its plans for improvement to the Korean ministry.
To no surprise, Volkswagen later suffered its biggest emissions scandal to date in 2015, in which investigations revealed that it faked NOx emissions data during regulatory testing to meet government standards.
By Joseph Shin (jss539@koreabizwire.com)
