(Reuters) Volkswagen has won German regulatory approval for technical fixes on another 460,000 diesel cars with illicit emissions control software, it said on Sunday, raising the number of vehicles cleared for repair to over 5 million.
Approval by Germany’s motor vehicle authority KBA is valid for countries throughout Europe where 8.5 million diesel cars are affected by Volkswagen’s emissions test-rigging scandal. About 11 million autos are implicated globally.
In the United States, where VW’s manipulations came to light eleven months ago, the German group still lacks technical fixes and is in the process of testing hardware and software that could help it avoid having to buy back about 475,000 affected cars.
VW said on Sunday that Germany’s KBA had signed off on a fix for models with smaller 1.2-litre diesel engines, such as the Polo subcompact and Spanish division Seat’s Ibiza model.
VW group models with 1.2-litre and 2.0-litre engines only require a software update on pollution control systems, whereas about 3 million 1.6-litre engines, besides the software update, also require a mesh to be installed near the air filter.
Wolfsburg-based VW has said the majority of the 8.5 million cars can be repaired this year but an unknown number of vehicles will not be fixed until 2017.
