WASHINGTON—U.S. environmental regulators said Monday that Volkswagen also included "defeat devices" to skirt emissions rules on certain larger diesel engines, in addition to the smaller 2.0 liter engines reported earlier.
The Environmental Protection Agency said its investigation into the already hugely damaging scandal found that various 3.0 liter diesel VW Toureg, Porsche Cayenne and Audis from the 2014-2016 model years had been equipped with the software designed to cheat US regulations.
The software makes the engines run according to US standards when emissions testing is ongoing. Immediately after testing is finished, the software switches into standard drive mode in which poisonous nitrogen oxide emissions rise to up to nine times the EPA's standard, the agency said.
The new official notice of violation covers 10,000 cars sold since 2014 and an unknown number of 2016 model cars.
"VW has once again failed its obligation to comply with the law that protects clean air for all Americans," said Cynthia Giles, an official with the Office for EPA's Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2015
