Volkswagen not leaving Azerbaijan
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 American authorities ordered half a million VW cars to be withdrawn from the US market.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.