The press release added that the new mandatory tests would provide more reliable results, and served as the first step to ensure both clean and competitive car industry in the bloc.
In September 2015, the Volkswagen Group, which owns 19 car brands, including Audi and Mercedes-Benz, faced a public emissions scandal when the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accused the automaker of using specific software to falsify emission test results for its diesel-engine cars. Millions of diesel-engine Volkswagen vehicles manufactured between 2009 and 2015 were estimated to have been programmed to cheat emissions tests for nitrogen oxide. Volkswagen admitted that 11 million of its vehicles worldwide had been fitted with this test-cheating software.