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| Mercedes-Benz will extend a voluntary recall to more than three million diesel vehicles (AFP Photo/Tobias SCHWARZ) |
Berlin (AFP) - German luxury car maker Daimler, which is being investigated for alleged emissions cheating, announced Tuesday a voluntary recall of more than three million Mercedes-Benz diesel vehicles in Europe.
It said it
had already launched a service action for other models and that, "in order
to effectively improve the emissions of additional model series, Daimler has
now decided to extend the service action to include over three million
Mercedes-Benz vehicles".
The
Stuttgart-based company said the action would cost the company some 220 million
euros ($255 million) and be free of charge for customers.
"In
this way, Daimler is making a significant contribution to the reduction of
nitrogen-oxide emissions from diesel vehicles in European inner cities,"
it said in a statement.
The recall
would start in coming weeks and, "due to the large number of
vehicles", take "a longer period of time".
A week
earlier, German media reported that Daimler had manipulated the engines of
around one million diesel vehicles to make them appear less polluting, raising
echoes of competitor Volkswagen's 'dieselgate' scandal.
Sueddeutsche
Zeitung daily and two public broadcasters, citing a court-issued search warrant,
said the company "sold vehicles with higher levels of damaging emissions
than allowed for almost a whole decade between 2008 and 2016, in Europe and the
United States".
Investigators
suspect Daimler used a similar so-called "defeat device" to
Volkswagen, which in 2015 admitted to manipulating emissions readings on some
11 million diesel vehicles worldwide.
Software in
the motor runs the emissions treatment system at a higher setting when it
detects the vehicle is undergoing regulatory testing.
At the
time, a Daimler spokeswoman contacted by AFP declined to comment on an ongoing
investigation, but said the carmaker was cooperating with the authorities.
In its
latest statement, Daimler said Mercedes-Benz had developed a completely new
diesel engine family that could meet stricter EU emission regulations to come.
"The
public debate about diesel engines is creating uncertainty –- especially for
our customers," said Dieter Zetsche, chief executive of Daimler AG and
head of Mercedes-Benz Cars.
"We
have therefore decided on additional measures to reassure drivers of diesel
cars and to strengthen confidence in diesel technology," he said.
"We
are convinced that diesel engines will continue to be a fixed element of the
drive-system mix, not least due to their low CO2 emissions."
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