Emissions scandal: Volkswagen hopeful of reaching agreement with India

German carmaker Volkswagen hopes that Indian authorities will accept a plan similar to the one that the company has agreed upon with European authorities to test and fix the diesel engines affected by the emissions cheating scandal that hit the company recently. A task force is looking into the issue of India-made diesel cars.

“As the engines for India are using that homologation procedure, we think that could be a master plan to talk to the Indian government and we hope for their acceptance. The plan is a detailed schedule for all types of engines, what we are going to do and how we are going to test the engines and when we are going to release a new software batch or even modify the hardware,” Herbert Diess, CEO, Volkswagen Passenger Cars, told the BusinessLine and TheHindu at the Tokyo Motor Show today. A major achievement over the past few weeks was the agreement with European authorities to fix the engines.

“Yes, they are affected,” he said, in response to whether India-made diesel cars were affected.

ARAI to file report

After the emissions scandal broke out, the Government of India ordered an investigation whether diesel vehicles sold in India had the “defeat device” to circumvent local emission test norms. The State-run testing agency Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) is expected to shortly file a report on its investigation.

Earlier this month, Volkswagen India had asked its dealers to stop selling the Polo hatchback till further notice.

Volkswagen was found to have fudged on the emission tests of its diesel engine cars in the US, following which its then CEO Martin Winterkorn quit.

The process to fix the engines, according to Diess, will take several months because it is a bunch of different engines. “The fixes are different. Some of the engines we can fix by updating the software. The plan will be a comprehensive plan, which will lead us into next year.”

Will win back buyers' trust

Addressing journalists on the press day at the motor show, Diess apologised for what had happened as far as the emissions testing was concerned. Volkswagen did something that was wrong and that went against everything the company stood for. The company’s immediate task was to find out how and what went wrong, set that right and then begin the long process to regain customer confidence.

On regaining customer confidence, Diess said “you lose confidence very fast and you regain very slowly. So, it is hard and diligent work.” He was, however, confident that Volkswagen would be able to win back the trust of its buyers.

He believed diesel continued to be an attractive engine option, especially in mid- and large-size cars. However, there was a likely shift from diesel engines to petrol engines as far as compact cars were concerned.

He also believed that there would be a greater shift to “electrification” of cars. While hybrid cars were already in the market, plug-in hybrids would gain greater acceptance going forward and the next step would be more electric vehicles, he said.

“Electrification is a trend in the industry. It is irreversible. That is why we also announced that we will invest more money in electric cars.”

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