This file photo taken on March 28, 2012 shows Porsche Cayenne models parked in a lot at the Porsche plant in Leipzig, eastern Germany, waiting to be dispatched to clients around the world. Around 630,000 Audi, Mercedes, Opel, Porsche and Volkswagen cars are to be recalled in Europe owing to irregularities in their emissions values, a German government source told AFP on April 22, 2016. Photo AFP-LEHTIKUVA
Five German carmakers have decided to recall 630,000 vehicles in Europe to fix diesel emissions management software, said German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt on Friday.
Companies affected are Mercedes-Benz, Opel, Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche, according to Dobrindt.
The move was voluntarily agreed by carmakers in order to fix software which shuts down emission controls at certain temperatures to protect the engine, he said. Although the technology is legal, a German probe on 53 car models found that the temperature thresholds at which the emissions controls were switched off in some models were not justified.
Dobrindt said no car was found to use the same kind of cheating software which Volkswagen used to manipulate emissions in testing.
The probe was conducted by Federal Motor Transport Authority shortly after the revelation of Volkswagen's emissions scandal last year.
On Friday, Volkswagen said it had set aside 16.2 billion euros (18.21 billion U.S. dollars) in provisions to cover technical modifications costs and customer-related measures as well as global legal risks.
