Daimler CEO grilled

The Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) grilled Daimler Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche on Monday over how many Mercedes-Benz vehicles need to be fixed after a regulator said it had found illegal software in one of its models.

Daimler was last week ordered by Germany’s KBA motor vehicle authority to recall Vito vans fitted with 1.6-litre diesel engines because it said they breached emissions rules.

Daimler has said it will appeal against KBA’s decision to classify the software as illegal and contest its findings in court if necessary.

Daimler now has until June 15 to come up with a fix for all affected Vito vans. 

“We will have an in-depth exchange about highly technical questions with the aim of examining how many models are impacted,” said Germany’s transport minister, Andreas Scheuer. “At a further meeting in 14 days, concrete results will be on the table.”

Zetsche, however, claimed to Reuters he was happy with the meeting: “It was a good discussion. We will see each other again in 14 days.”

According to Scheuer, the Vito vans caught up in the new investigation had a software device that manipulated the Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) process.

The SCR process injects a liquid urea reduction agent through a catalyst to reduce harmful nitrogen oxide emissions.

The software found is said to be computer coding that governs how often the SCR system injects the liquid.

German newspaper Bild am Sonntag claims that up to around 40,000 Vito vans and 80,000 C-Class models may contain the illegal software.