After revealing that 774,000 Mercedes-Benz vehicles across Europe contain unauthorized emissions-cheating software, the German Transport Ministry has ordered Daimler to recall 238,000 of the vehicles in Germany, Reuters reports.
The main vehicles in question include the Mercedes-Benz C-Class, Vito, and GLC with diesel engines. The defeat software could be used for the company to cheat on emissions testing, although the Ministry has seen no evidence of it being used to do so.
The Ministry is only able to recall vehicles within Germany or vehicles with a pan-European road-worthiness certification from German authorities, which is why only 238,000 of the vehicles have been officially recalled.
Daimler has agreed to cooperate with authorities and says it has found a technical solution for updating the software on its vehicles which should allow the company to avoid receiving a fine.
Emission test cheating “defeat devices” or software are illegal under European law, a lesson Volkswagen learned to the tune of $25 billion in fines, penalties, and restitution. Daimler also succumbed to the emissions cheating scandal in July 2017, ordering the recall of 3 million vehicles to fix excess emissions coming from their diesel engines.
According to Reuters, Daimler confirmed the recall and said is was unclear if the software was illegal.