Emissions pressure mounts as Renault recalls 15,000 cars

French car manufacturer Renault is set to recall over 15,000 of its vehicles amid fears that they have a level of emissions above the limits permitted by real-world testing and than the French standards allow.

The news follows fraud investigations carried out by French authorities and a consequential large scale drop in company shares a week earlier. The French government created a commission following the Volkswagen scandal last September to make sure French companies were building cars with compliant emission levels

While promising to produce a ‘technical plan’ to cut company emissions, Thierry Koskas, Renault sales director, reinstated that the manufacturer is ‘not using any software or other methods’.

Ségoléne Royal, French Environment Minister, told French radio station RTL that ‘new cars must be up to standard’. She continued to say that other French companies had broken emission rules, but refused to name them, adding that while Renault may not have used software to cheat tests, national emissions standards still had to be met.