A Golf in production in Wolfsburg
The car can go back to the customer, VW has lifted the delivery freeze.
Düsseldorf The Volkswagen group has lifted the delivery freeze for the new Golf 8. This was confirmed on Thursday by a group spokesman in Wolfsburg. Since mid-May were due to a software bug no newly produced golf models have been delivered to customers. With the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) in Flensburg Volkswagen also informed about a recall for the already delivered cars.
As the VW spokesman also said, the recall will be in Germany approximately 15,000 vehicles are expected to be affected. Since the fall of last year, around 30,000 Golfs have been primarily for the European market with the software bug has been produced.
A large proportion of the new golf vehicles have so far been sold in Germany. All cars now get a software update that fixes the bug. Volkswagen had received the necessary approval from the Federal Motor Transport Authority.
The software error discovered a few weeks ago on the new Golf 8 ensures that the emergency call assistant that the EU has prescribed in every new car for two years does not work properly. “There may be an unreliable data transfer from the software to a control unit,” Volkswagen said as the reason for the error.
The emergency assistant ensures that an accident or breakdown is automatically reported to a traffic control center. Rescue and emergency services are to be directed to an accident site more quickly.
Volkswagen saw no alternative to the now recall of the already delivered Golf vehicles. The imposed delivery stop was also inevitable. According to EU regulations, Volkswagen is obliged to only deliver cars that have a functioning emergency call assistant. “It is a compliance case,” said the spokesman.
In addition, Volkswagen in Wolfsburg said that the company itself discovered the faulty software in the emergency call assistant. There were no accidents caused by the errors in the computer programs. Volkswagen responded promptly and voluntarily to the existing problems.
Software is coming faster than expected
In Technical Development (TE) at Volkswagen, work was quickly carried out on new software for the emergency call assistant. The modified computer programs can be installed immediately on all newly produced golf models. The vehicles already delivered will receive the new software as part of the planned recall in a workshop.
The new software was finished a little faster than expected. Originally, Wolfsburg had said that the new error-free software would only be ready in the middle of this month.
For Volkswagen, the delivery freeze and recall had come at an extremely inconvenient time. The Wolfsburg-based automaker already had major problems last year with the timely completion of the new and more complex software for the new Golf 8.
The start of production had been significantly delayed. Instead of the initially planned 80,000 to 100,000 cars that were to be produced in Wolfsburg last year, in the end only around 8,000 copies had left the production lines. At its main plant in Wolfsburg, Volkswagen has combined the entire golf production.
At the start of sales at the end of last year, the German Volkswagen dealers in particular were only sparsely supplied with the new Golf. VW sales director Jürgen Stackmann apologized publicly to the German dealers.
The Golf had continued to be produced despite the delivery freeze. The cars were parked without new software. The modified software is now installed on the vehicles. According to internal data, Volkswagen currently produces around 4,000 new golf models in Wolfsburg every week.
More: Power struggle in Wolfsburg: mistrust of VW boss Diess is growing.