Suzuki is suspected of having put more than 22,000 vehicles of various types with illegal defeat devices on the market by 2018. As a result, exhaust gas cleaning has been massively reduced or switched off, so that the vehicles in real operation emit significantly more nitrogen oxides than permitted. The customers were deceived about this fact. The software for the engine control is said to come in part from the supplier Marelli. The investigations are being coordinated by the EU’s judicial authority, Eurojust, and are ongoing.
Business premises in Bensheim, Heidelberg, Corbetta (Italy) and Esztergom (Hungary) are currently being searched by the Hessian police, the Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office and the Italian and Hungarian investigative authorities. Suzuki Germany declined to comment on the investigation.
The Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office has been investigating the supplier Continental for some time. The Frankfurt case is about the Japanese car manufacturer Mitsubishi, which was suspected of manipulating exhaust emissions and had obtained engines from the former PSA group (now Stellantis). The software is said to come from the subsidiary Vitesco, which has since been split off from Continental.
Source: Nachrichten
