German automaker Volkswagen announced Wednesday that a problem with carbon dioxide emissions is far smaller than initially suspected.
In a case separate from the emissions cheating scandal, the company said that further checks found “slight discrepancies” in only a few models and no evidence of illegal changes to fuel consumption and emissions figures.
“This means that these vehicles can be marketed and sold without any limitations,” the company said in a statement.
Volkswagen said that minor “deviations” were found in nine variants of brand models, including Polo, Scirocco, Jetta, Golf and Passat with an annual production of some 36,000 cars, or less than one percent of the brand's total production. Those deviations amount to “a few grams of CO2 on average,” Volkswagen said.
Volkswagen’s update came as its supervisory board was meeting to discuss progress with the investigations it launched in September after its admission of irregularities about carbon emissions a day after U.S. authorities accused the company of fitting defeat devices on its larger diesel vehicles.
Shares in Volkswagen traded 6 percent higher on the news.
Volkswagen was plunged into the biggest crisis in its history after the revelation that 11 million of its vehicles had been fitted with devices that switched anti-pollution controls on during tests, but shut off the devices during normal driving.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in September that there were 500,000 problemed diesel Volkswagens in the U.S., which warranted fines up to $18 billion.
Some law firms in North America filed class action suits. Countries in Europe, including Germany, also filed law suits, in addition to ordering investigations into emission levels of Volkswagen cars.
