Foreign car brands fear another VW case following government's inspection of sales certification
By Jhoo Dong-chan
The government plans to announce its inspection results of the sales certifications of vehicle models from foreign car makers by the end of this month, arousing fears they may see the another Volkswagen case.
Finding that Volkswagen obtained sales approvals for its vehicle models from authorities by using faked reports on noise levels, fuel efficiency and emissions results, the Ministry of Environment banned sales of the German carmaker’s 80 models and revoked their certifications in August.
According to government and industry sources, the ministry will soon announce its inspection results of the vehicle certifications for 23 foreign car makers.
“It has been a prevailing common practice for local units of foreign car brands to submit fabricated emissions test results to pass the local authentication process. So, we decided to carry out the inspection to see whether they obtained the sales approvals without rigging the results with the government,” said an official.
The ministry requested the National Institute of Environmental Research to carry out complete inspections on all models of foreign carmakers.
The lineups of the 23 foreign carmakers in Korea were subject to the ministry’s inspection, and any carmakers caught cheating on the tests are expected to face similar punitive measures as Volkswagen did.
Each vehicle type that shares the same engine has at least two or three models depending on options or transmissions. If a flagship model obtains sales approval from the government, its sister models of the same type are likewise considered certified.
When Volkswagen was found to have cheated on the emissions tests to obtain sales approval for its cars, the officials of the German carmaker claimed “it’s a common practice.”
The environment ministry immediately widened its investigation to all foreign car makers in Korea.
The ministry has not announced its findings yet. A Hyundai Motor official said the government’s announcement could be a game changer in Korea’s import car market.
“I understand domestic carmakers, such as Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors, assign 200 members of their staff to deal with government certification,” the insider said.
“Local sales units of foreign carmakers in Korea do not have such manpower, and it therefore takes time to collect information such as emissions data for each model. For that reason, a number of dealerships are likely to have submitted forged test data to obtain certification as soon as possible for the sake of more sales. If the ministry imposes similar punitive measures against the violating dealerships as it did with Audi Volkswagen Korea, it will deal a severe blow to Korea’s import car industry.”
The government banned the sales of 80 Volkswagen and Audi vehicle models and fined the company 17.8 billion won ($16 million) in July. Volkswagen’s sales nosedived by about 70 percent in July year-on-year.
S>Currently, Hyundai Motor has six eco-friendly models — the Sonata Hybrid and Plug-in, the Grandeur Hybrid, the Ioniq Hybrid and Electric, and the Tucson Fuel Cell Electric.