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1st LD Writethru: Volkswagen scandal also affects nearly 100,000 petrol vehicles: German Transport Minister

Xinhua, November 5, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Volkswagen emission-cheating scandal also affected 98,000 petrol vehicles, said German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt here on Wednesday.

Initially, only diesel engine vehicles were revealed to have understated emission levels, and the scandal was mainly focused on nitrogen oxide emissions.

On Tuesday, Volkswagen said CO2 emission and fuel consumption figures of around 800,000 Volkswagen Group vehicles, a majority of them with diesel engines, "were set too low".

Dobrindt said Volkswagen should check emission and fuel consumption of all its car series. "Everything should be turned upside down and looked at."

He called on the carmaker to set up a customer service center to deal with the scandal and said the resulting higher vehicle taxes from correcting the understated emission levels should not be borne by car owners.

"The problem must be eliminated and there should be no burden rise for customers," Dobrindt said.

Volkswagen faces increasing pressure from the government which is trying to prevent the cheating scandal from damaging the reputation of German products and industry.

Earlier on Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert urged Volkswagen to clarify the irregularities in a transparent and comprehensive manner and to create structures to avoid similar cases happening again.

Volkswagen estimated on Tuesday that the latest irregularities would cost the company about 2 billion euros (2.17 billion U.S. dollars). Endit