A raid on BMW’s Munich headquarters by emissions investigators came after the brand reported the “incorrect installation of software” to the relevant authorities, according to the brands chief executive Harald Krueger.

Raids on BMW’s headquarters and a separate facility in Austria were carried out on Tuesday as prosecutors revealed that they had reason to believe that 11,400 of the German premium car manufacturers vehicles may have been equipped with “inadmissible defeat devices”.

Two models, the 750xd and M550xd, were at the centre of the probe, the Financial Times reported.

Speaking at BMW Group’s annual press briefing just a later, Krueger said that the raids had come after BMW had mistakenly installed the wrong software program in more than 11,000 diesel vehicles.

Krueger told the assembled press at this week’s briefing that the manufacturer had subsequently reported the mistake to regulators and asked for permission to recall the affected vehicles. 

He added that BMW were now cooperating with the police – around a 100 of whom took part in this week’s raids, according to a report by Forbes – adding that “The BMW Group continues to assume that the situation was caused by an incorrect allocation of the software and does not represent a deliberate attempt to manipulate exhaust emissions.”

The FT reported that BMW had discovered its software issues “in the course of internal testing”, adding that “many” of the cars in question were sold with correct software and “ran correctly for over two years” before being updated with incorrect software.

A statement issued by the BMW Group said: “The BMW Group takes the situation very seriously and has a significant interest in the circumstances being fully explained.

“The company is co-operating fully with the authorities. In addition, the company had already started an internal investigation and will obviously forward all information gathered so far to the authorities.”