Volkswagen plans to recall 3.7 mil. cars in Germany

Volkswagen held its first annual meeting Wednesday since the emission cheating scandal occurred in September last year and announced its plan for a product recall. The German automobile giant, however, did not make any comments on potential compensation or recall plans for consumers in other countries including South Korea.

“We have received recall permission from the Transport Ministry for more than 3.7 million vehicles including the Passat, Tiguan, Audi A3, Audi A5, and Audi Q5. Over the next few weeks, thousands of car owners will get recall notifications,” Volkswagen Group CEO Matthias Müller said on Wednesday in a shareholders’ meeting in Hanover, Germany.

Currently, Volkswagen is negotiating with the U.S. government over a compensation agreement on vehicle refund and compensation payment. Experts are projecting that the compensation will reach 10 billion dollars in scale, and the agreement will be disclosed in the federal district court of San Francisco on next Tuesday.

As for Korea, no further compensation plan has been proposed since Audi Volkswagen Korea had its recall plan rejected early this month by the Environment Ministry for the third time. Public sentiment towards the German carmaker is souring further after the prosecution found out that in addition to the diesel models, the company sold the gasoline-fueled "Golf 1.4 TSI" after manipulating the software to meet the locally required emission levels.

정민지기자 jmj@donga.com