Volkswagen will recall 8.5 million “clean diesel” vehicles in Europe because of software that allows the vehicles to cheat emissions tests, the German automaker announced Thursday morning.
The recall does not include the approximately 482,000 similar vehicles in the United States that have been identified by the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board as containing the same “defeat device” software.
According to a statement from Volkswagen, the recall involves 2.4 million vehicles in Germany and 8.5 million across Europe. Outside of the 28 European Union countries involved in the recall, it will be up to each individual country to work with the company to come up with its own plan for a recall.
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“Work on the technical solutions detailed in the plan of measures is currently proceeding at full speed. Remedial action on the vehicles will begin in January 2016 — at no cost to our customers,” the company said. “The technical solutions can involve software as well as hardware measures. These are currently being developed for each affected series and each affected model year.”
The EPA and the California Air Resources Board are investigating Volkswagen for installing “defeat devices” that allow vehicles to skirt emissions tests. The devices allowed popular models, such as the Jetta, to tell when they were undergoing emissions testing.
The defeat device is about 100 million lines of software code written into the vehicle’s programming.
The software could tell if a test was taking place based on the position of the vehicle’s steering wheel, the speed the vehicle was traveling, how long the engine was being used and barometric pressure, according to the EPA. The vehicles would reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide during testing and then spew 40 times the legal limit during normal use.
Volkswagen officials are blaming “rogue software engineers” for the devices.
Two congressional committees are investigating the scam with law enforcement authorities in Germany.
The recall in Europe gives some clues to how a similar recall may work in the United States when it eventually comes about.
European VW owners are currently able to look up whether their vehicle contains a defeat device on the company’s website. The company says it will also tell the owners of the affected vehicles over the next weeks and months what measures will have to be taken to fix their vehicles.
The company emphasized, as has the EPA, all of the vehicles are safe to drive and can stay on the road.
