Germany Orders Volkswagen to Fix Dirty Diesels Faster

German transportation authority KBA on Thursday ordered the mandatory recall of 2.4 million Volkswagen cars with illegally polluting diesel engines, in part, because the German automaker’s proposed timetable wasn’t fast enough, Automotive News reported.

The forced recall will mean Volkswagen would likely spend more to fix its cars faster and German officials have told the automaker to submit a proposed fix by the end of November. Volkswagen initially planned for a voluntary recall to begin next year.

Authorities in Switzerland and Austria followed Germany and announced the forced recall would apply to those cars too, Bloomberg reported.

Last week, Volkswagen of America chief Michael Horn testified that a recall in the U.S. could take longer than one year to complete. Newer, Generation 3 diesel models would only need a software fix, which could be completed as early as next year.

Older, Generation 2 models may need more significant fixes, Horn said. That fix, which could involve replacing the car’s urea injectors, could come by the middle of next year.

Generation 1 models of the cars fitted with an EA 189 engine — the overwhelming majority of the 482,000 cars in the U.S. — would get more significant fixes and those cars could take years to rectify, Horn said.

Officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency notified Volkswagen that its 2-liter diesel engines violated the Clean Air Act in September. It’s unclear if the EPA will follow the KBA in forcing Volkswagen to fix its cars faster.

Analysts say the mandatory recall by German authorities is to better control the fixes and force the automaker’s hand in completing the repairs faster.

“It’s an unusual measure to be ordering a mandatory recall,” Arndt Ellinghorst, a London-based analyst with Evercore ISI, told Bloomberg. “It shows to me that the KBA is losing patience with VW’s slow response on what to do to fix the engines so far. Customers have been left unsettled.”