Germany’s Volkswagen, already reeling from the fallout of cheating on U.S. emissions tests for nitrogen oxide, said Tuesday that an internal investigation has revealed “unexplained inconsistencies” in the carbon dioxide emissions from 800,000 of its vehicles — a development it said could cost an additional $2.2 billion.
The investigation was undertaken by the company after the revelations that many of its vehicles had software that allowed them to deceive U.S. nitrogen oxide tests.
In September, the company admitted it had installed software designed to defeat tests for nitrogen oxide emissions for four-cylinder diesel engines on 11 million cars worldwide, including almost 500,000 in the U.S. This week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Volkswagen had installed the software on thousands of six-cylinder diesel Audi, Porsche and VW cars. Volkswagen has denied the charge.
Volkswagen said the 800,000 were “predominantly vehicles with diesel engines,” raising the possibility for the first time that some VWs with gas-powered motors may also have emissions problems. However, a spokeswoman for Volkswagen Group of America said “we are told the issue is not related to the U.S. market.”
