The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has jurisdiction over compliance with emission standards, said it will have to evaluate whatever repairs Volkswagen proposes before it’s made part of a recall.
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The DPA news agency reported that the Motor Transport Authority – which answers to Mr Dobrindt’s ministry – rejected a Volkswagen proposal for a voluntary recall.
The announcement comes after Germany demanded that the automaker recalls 2.4 million affected cars in the country over the VW’s continued emissions scandal.
Under today’s order, Volkswagen must share technical details of its solution with the government by mid-November and begin recalling cars in January.
Last month, authorities in the USA discovered a few VW diesel cars had been fitted with a device to cheat emissions tests.
But Paul Willis told MPs on the Commons Environmental Audit Committee: “I can speak for the whole group when I can say Volkswagen is deeply sorry”.
Volkswagen already faced an ongoing criminal investigation and billions in fines for violating the Clean Air Act for its earlier emissions cheat, as well as a raft of state investigations and class-action lawsuits filed on behalf of customers.
But the German regulator said Thursday it was hard to set a deadline for the end of the recall because the hardware fix required for cars fitted with 1.6 liter diesel engines would only be ready from September 2016. The recall procedure for US market cars has not yet been detailed, though it is understood that different models using the same engine will likely require different fixes in an effort to achieve the required fuel economy figures.
The United Kingdom boss of Volkswagen has promised to “do the right thing” and “fully resolve” issues following the diesel emissions scandal. VW estimated it needed the whole year to fix all cars with the incriminated software, but a new time scheme hasn’t been released yet. According to VW, there are approximately 325,000 of those models – about two-thirds of the US cars under investigation.
“We are glad to have won Christine Hohmann-Dennhardt for this responsible job and hope to profit from her competence and experience”, VW supervisory board chief Hans-Dieter Pötsch said in a statement.
Aside from the millions of vehicles affected in Germany, more than one million could be hit in Britain and almost a million in France.
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The automaker had initially requested for the recall to be discretionary but was given an unequivocal “no”.
