Volkswagen was ordered by California regulators to recall their diesel vehicles that were equipped with emissions cheating software over the coming months in the wake of the pollution scandal. The California Air Resources Board has said that it has notified Volkswagen Group America to recall all the Porsche, Audi and VW vehicles that have 3 Litre diesel engines in the models made between 2009 and 2015 and sold in California.

The company has forty five business days for submitting their plan to initiate the process of recalling and repairing the illegal emissions software according to the CARB. The state’s environment regulations are one of the toughest in the US.

The CARB has issued a statement that the action is a result of the admission by officials at Audi AG that manufactures all the involved engines, that the cars have three auxiliary emissions controlling devices. The recall involves around 15,000 to 16,000 3L diesel vehicles, according to Dave Clegern, the CARB spokesman.

The agency in its letter to Volkswagen has noted that even though the 3 L engine was developed by Audi, it was used by Porsche and VV in the Touareg and Porsche models since 2009. VW, Porsche and Audi have all independently certified the products and hence are individually responsible for the future recall actions and violations.

The Federal Environmental Protection Agency, that is probing the scandal with the CARB has said that Audi claimed to US regulators that the 3 L diesel models which contain the auxiliary emissions control devices have been around since 2009. Volkswagen has been embroiled in the scandal since September when it admitted that around 11 million vehicles all over the world were equipped with the smaller 2 L diesel engine that has the pollution cheating software patch.

The scandal became worse when the company revealed that it had understated the carbon dioxide emissions, including those for the petrol engines, for around 8 lakh vehicles.

The world’s second biggest car maker faces criminal and regulatory investigations in several countries, including the US and Germany and billions of dollars as fines.