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Newer diesel engines didn’t cheat tests: VW

UPDATED: Volkswagen said on Thursday that its most recent model of diesel motor was "definitely not manipulated" using software designed to defeat regulators' emissions testing.

Newer diesel engines didn't cheat tests: VW
New Volkswagen CEO Matthias Müller inspects a vehicle on a production line at the company's home in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony. Photo: DPA
“Following a thorough examination we are now certain that there is no software built into vehicles with the EA 288 under EU emissions regulation 5 that would constitute an illegal defeat device,” a company statement said.
 
A Volkswagen spokesman had said earlier on Thursday that newer versions of Volkswagen diesel engines may have had a 'defeat device' designed to fool emissions testing built into them.
 
Until now, the EA189 model engine was believed to be the only motor with the software included.
 
The EA288 diesel motors were fitted to cars starting in 2012, the company said, including to the highly-popular Golf.

German authorities at the Federal Office of Motor Vehicles (KBA) had previously said that they couldn't rule out the EA288 also being designed to fool regulators' tests.

VW says that since this September it has only been selling vehicles fitted with a new version of the engine which complies with tougher Euro-6 regulations.

Until Thursday it had always insisted that the “current diesel motor generation EA288 was not affected” by the scandal.

Germany's biggest carmaker admitted around a month ago that millions of its vehicles were fitted with software designed to reduce the engine's emissions of harmful Nox gases when it detected it was being submitted to standardized tests.

The cheating engines were built into roughly 11 million vehicles worldwide, including 8.5 million in the European Union and 2.4 million in Germany itself.

Earlier this week, new VW boss Matthias Müller had assured workers at the Wolfsburg headquarters that the scandal would not affect them personally.

“At the moment we have no reason to think of shortening working hours” as a way to cut labour costs, Müller said.

The company board says that the emissions scandal has so far not impacted sales.

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