VW ordered to recall 2.4m cars in Germany

Hamburg, Germany - German automotive watchdog, KBA, will force Volkswagen to recall 2.4 million vehicles in the country after Europe's biggest automaker admitted to cheating on emissions tests for diesel vehicles.

A spokesman for the motor transport authority said on Thursday, confirming a newspaper report: "We are ordering the recall."

German daily Bild reported earlier that the KBA had rejected a proposal by VW under which owners of the affected diesel cars could voluntarily bring in their cars for fixes.

Read: Emissions scandal: New head of VW USA steps down

Volkswagen admitted last month that it had installed software in diesel vehicles to deceive US regulators about the true level of their toxic emissions. It has said up to 11 million vehicles were affected worldwide.

'We need to be careful'

German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel warned on Wednesday against condemning diesel technology as a whole due to the emissions scandal at Volkswagen but said Germany needed to do better in switching to alternative engines.

He said: "I can only warn against calling diesel overall into question. We need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

"In the USA three types of motor were checked, of which two were manipulated by Volkswagen but for a third motor there were no concerns at all about it not keeping to the emissions values."

He added however, that he was in favour of introducing incentives to reduce the price difference between electric and conventional cars.