Korea’s environment ministry on Tuesday found Audi and Porsche guilty of rigging the diesel emissions technology of 10,261 cars sold in Korea.

The licenses of the car models would be revoked Wednesday. The two companies would be subject to a remedial order and punitive fines as well as face criminal charges, the ministry said.

The eight models in question are those sold from May 2015 to January 2018. Three are from Audi A6 (FMY-AD-14-11, FMY-AD-14-10, HMY-AD-14-13), two from Audi A7 (FMY-AD-14-12, HMY-AD-14-08), two from Volkswagen Touareg (FMY-AD-14-27, HMY-AD-14-19), and one from Porsche Cayenne (FMY-SG-14-01).

The automakers were found to have manipulated the emissions technology so that cars running low on diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) would reduce their DEF injections when driving on a highway.

DEF is stored in a separate tank of a vehicle and injected into the exhaust system to clean exhaust gases. With the introduction of the Euro 6 standards that enforced more stringent emission requirements of diesel cars, European automakers started using exhaust fluid, commonly known by its trade name AdBlue, to break down nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions into harmless elements before releasing them into the atmosphere.

The NOx emissions of the faulty models were found to be more than tenfold of their compliant peers.

The ministry immediately launched a probe after the German motor vehicle authority in June 2018 accused Audi of using software to cheat on its emissions testing of the A6 and A7.

German authorities had then issued a recall on 60,000 units of the two models fitted with 3.0-liter Euro 6-compliant diesel engines.

By Yeon Gyu-wook and Kim Hyo-jin

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