BMW has said it would have to recall 1.5m vehicles over a braking problem, costing it almost EUR1bn (GNP0.84bn), media reports said.

According to the Guardian, the automaker said its annual earnings would be considerably lower than expected, with the fault in the braking system now discovered to be far more widespread than first thought.

Although BMW said the problem with the braking system in some new models was not a safety issue, the additional cost under warranties would be a “high three-digit million amount”.

The system, made by Continental, is used in a variety of BMW models built since June 2022, including the BMW X1, X2 and X5 SUVs, the Mini Cooper and Countryman and the Rolls-Royce Spectre.

The Guardian said it was understood only a small fraction of the cars potentially had the system malfunction and these would have been manufactured in BMW’s plants in Germany, the UK and France, as well as in the US, China, and South Korea.

Continental reportedly said that only a “small proportion” of the braking systems it produces for BMW would be partly replaced due to an electronic component that, it said, “might have an impaired functionality”.

BMW reportedly stressed the brakes in the cars covered by the recall continue to work and it did not know of any incident caused by the issue but it was understood the fault in the electronic braking support system could affect how hard drivers have to press the brake pedal to stop the car.

Continental’s estimate of the financial provision it needed to cover the warranty was a fraction of BMW’s, in the “mid-double-digit million” range, the Guardian said.

BMW reportedly said about 1.2m of the affected vehicles had already been delivered to customers and could be remotely checked for faults through wireless software updates. However, about 320,000 new cars would have their delivery delayed, cutting second half sales.

When the problem first emerged in February, about 14,000 UK registered vehicles were believed to be affected, the Guardian said.