Skoda adds 1.2 million cars to Volkwagen’s emission cheating vehicle list

The emission cheating scandal involving German auto giant Volkswagen escalated on Tuesday with Skoda, an auto brand under Volkswagen, reporting that about 1.2 million cars by the Czech manufacturer have been fitted with pollution cheating software.

Volkswagen subsidiaries Audi and Skoda now account for more than three million of the vehicles fitted with software designed to dupe emission tests.

The number of Volkswagen vehicles involved in the emission cheating scandal, including the Audi and Skoda brands, worldwide tops 11 million, according to company sources.

The software turns on the emission control devices in a vehicle when it is undergoing emission tests but turns them off during normal driving.

"I can confirm that where the Skoda brand is concerned, there are 1.2 million cars that were produced," said Skoda spokesman Jozef Balaz.

"We are talking about previously produced EA 189 motors which are now in use," Balaz said in a statement, adding that the vehicles in question were "completely safe in everyday use."

Volkswagen said on Tuesday that 1.8 million of its commercial vehicles made by Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles worldwide are fitted with the sophisticated software enabling them to cheat emission tests.

A company spokesman said the number is part of the 11 million vehicles worldwide that VW has said are affected by the scandal, as the world's biggest carmaker slides deeper into its worst-ever crisis.

VW was "facing the severest test in its history," the group's new chief executive Matthias Mueller told managers last evening.

German prosecutors on Monday announced a criminal probe of Volkswagen's former boss Martin Winterkorn, after the company and its subsidiaries Audi and Skoda admitted of cheating on emission tests.

The German government is piling on pressure on the embattled auto giant to outline how it plans to resolve the crisis by the 7 October deadline.