Volkswagen on Wednesday ordered a halt to sales in Europe of all models that feature diesel engines equipped with defeat devices meant to falsify emissions compliance, the latest in a global scandal expected to cost the German automaker billions of dollars.

The automaker has been embroiled in investigations following admissions that it intentionally cheated on diesel emissions tests, specifically those pertaining to nitrous-oxide emissions. Several employees have been suspended or have resigned, and the automaker is currently developing one or more fixes for the 11 million vehicles worldwide affected by this issue.

The European stop-sale affects diesel models equipped with Volkswagen Group's EA189 four-cylinder turbodiesel engine. The EA189 was replaced by the EA288 in 2014, the latter of which been the diesel engine in US VW models since the start of the 2015 model year. Volkswagen toldReuters that this stop-sale

only affects a small number of vehicles, and those cars would be sold once fixed. Volkswagen's US dealerships are still under a recall of 8.5 million vehicles, despite claims that the newer engine meets current environmental standards. This stop-sale is in addition to the compulsory VW diesel models across Europe.