Audi Announces Recall Over Airbag Problem

German auto maker Audi has said it's recalling hundreds of thousands of vehicles to fix software responsible for airbag deployment. It said it would take drivers under an hour to carry out the software update.



Premium carmaker Audi reported Thursday that it needed to recall 850,000 of its A4 compact sedans worldwide, adding that about 150,000 units would be called back in Germany alone.



The Volkswagen group subsidiary said it wants to fix the software which deploys Audi airbags, noting they might not be activated in an accident.



The Ingolstadt-based company said it was investigating a "single-digit number" of accidents where it was conceivable that airbags hadn't deployed properly as a consequence of the software bug.



Quick fix



"For our customers, the fix will take only about half an hour," Audi said in statement, adding it was talking about A4 cars made between early 2012 and mid-October of this year.



The defect in question was found during an internal review, the carmaker noted.



Germany's Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) says that roughly 770,000 cars across all companies were recalled in Germany last year, with General Motors and Toyota leading the count.



hg/bew (dpa, Reuters, AFP)