Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

Volkswagen's emission scandal is not affecting the car market in Azerbaijan.

A suspension of sales of Volkswagen cars throughout the world will not affect the Azerbaijani car market, a source in Euro Style, an official distributor of the VW cars in Azerbaijan, told Trend on October 21.

The source said problems for which Volkswagen temporarily stopped sales in the world, involve only car models with diesel engines, which are not delivered to Azerbaijan.

“We deliver to Azerbaijan only the models that run on gasoline, so there is no reason to suspend the sale of Volkswagen cars in the country,” said Euro Style.

The distributor also said the only diesel-burning VW cars brought to Azerbaijan are the Amarok pick-up trucks, but no problems have been revealed with these cars.

Accordingly, the sales of Amarok trucks in the Azerbaijani market continue.

The emission scandal erupted around Volkswagen after it was revealed that the company manipulated US car emission tests for diesel-powered cars.

The onboard computers on Audi A3, Jetta, Beetle, Golf and Passat, manufactured by Volkswagen Group, were found to have software that turns on filters when the cars undergo car emission tests. However, in normal mode, the software automatically disables these filters.

For this reason, the actual emission of harmful substances by Volkswagen’s diesel-burning cars is much higher than indicated in the test results.

Some 11 million VW cars have the mentioned filtering software. American authorities ordered half a million VW cars to be withdrawn from the US market.

Countries around the world have also begun checking the VW cars. The company has already suspended the sales of its diesel cars in Switzerland, Belgium and Turkey.

The scandal may cost Volkswagen a fine of $18 billion. Moreover, the company will have to pay 6.5 billion euros (slightly over $7 billion) to cover costs associated with the replacement of the software.