Volkswagen chief executive Matthias Müller said the company plans to begin the recall of vehicles — that were fitted with software capable of cheating emissions tests — in January and aims to fix them all by the end of next year.
Volkswagen has said up to 11 million vehicles across several of its brands were fitted with software used to cheat on U.S. emissions tests. CEO Mueller told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that, “It will hopefully be fewer, but in any case still far too many.”
Asked when the recall will begin, Mueller said in an interview published Wednesday that “care goes before speed.”
“If everything goes as planned, we can start the recall in January,” he said. “All the cars should be in order by the end of 2016.”
Mr. Mueller said the company will have to fix the EA 189 diesel engine “in combination with various transmissions and country-specific designs. So we don’t need three solutions, but thousands.”
A software update will suffice to fix the problem in most cases, but some vehicles could need new injectors and catalysers, Mr. Mueller was quoted as saying. He said the automaker may need to set up temporary specialist workshops to deal with the more complex cases.
The CEO said that “according to current information, a few developers interfered in the engine management.” He said he doesn’t think the management board made the decision to use the manipulated software.
Volkswagen said after news of the scandal emerged last month that it had suspended some employees, but did not give details. Mr. Mueller said that four have been suspended so far among them three senior managers who at various times were responsible for engine development at Volkswagen.
