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Volkswagen emission scandal:
Sales in Lanka not affected
Sales of Volkswagen cars in Sri Lanka are not affected by the
Volkswagen emission standard crisis in the USA and parts of Europe,
Director Sales and Marketing, Volkswagen, Senok Trade Combine (Pvt)
Ltd., Reeza Rauf said.
 He said the company imports Euro 3 engine vehicles and added that the
problem is with Euro 5 engine vehicles used in USA and Europe.
Therefore, there is no way we could be affected.
Volkswagen, the world’s largest automaker, is in crisis over its
rigging of diesel engine emission tests in the USA and Europe. The
company was found to have falsified US pollution tests on 500,000 diesel
engine vehicles, by installing software (‘defeat devices’) to make them
appear cleaner than they were when being tested. Once on the road, the
cars would pump out as much as 40 times the allowed level of nitrogen
oxides.
Volkswagen appointed Matthias Mueller to succeed Martin Winterkorn
who stepped down as the CEO of the company following the scandal that
compelled the automaker to recall 500,000 cars in the US. German
prosecutors are investigating the former CEO for possible fraud related
to selling cars with falsified emissions data.
Winterkorn took responsibility for the scandal when he resigned last
week, but said then he was not aware of any wrong doing on his part. The
models affected in US include the VW Jetta, Beetle and Golf from 2009
through 2015, the Passat from 2014-2015 and the Audi A3 model from
2009-2015.
Volkswagen said last week about five million VW branded cars were
affected worldwide, including some Tiguan models. Other group brands
such as Audi (2.1 million cars) and Skoda (1.2 million cars) are also
involved. Estimates reveal that around 11 million vehicles may have been
manipulated.
The Volkswagen’s scheme was discovered last year by a West Virginia
laboratory that was commissioned by a clean energy advocacy group which
raised questions about emission levels in diesel vehicles. For more than
a year, VW argued with US officials that it was not doing anything
wrong. Only recently did VW admit that it had installed ‘defeat devices’
in the cars to get around emission standards.
Senok Trade Combine, the sole agent for VW cars in Sri Lanka imports
around 100-150 VW cars a year and sells around 10-15 a month.
- LF
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