“Volkswagen will not settle until the criminal investigations are resolved”, said James E. Tierney, program director of the national state attorneys general program at Columbia Law School, and a former Maine attorney general.
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Reuters reported on Saturday that Volkswagen made several different versions of the “defeat device” software that allows its diesel engines to emit illegally dirty exhaust without being detected in conventional testing. Of these 2-litre engines represent 50 per cent of the affected vehicles, 1.6-litre represents 48 per cent and the remainder are the 1.2-litres.
Automotive buybacks are rare in the United States, but there has been a case recently where a carmaker had to reimburse owners for their cars.
Volkswagen is “looking at an enormous settlement, just enormous, when you think about how many cars are out there”, he said.
Mr Himmer said: “The solution should not have an impact on Carbon dioxide and should not impact mpg or the performance of the auto and therefore there should be no difference in the car’s residual value”.
“It is not clear at the moment how a change in the Carbon dioxide emissions of cars will be treated by the income tax authorities”.
According to the Department of the Environment these emissions are taken from the car’s Certificate of Conformity provided by the manufacturer.
Current owners of VW-brand vehicles can get interest-free loans along with rebates of up to $2,000, as well as low-priced leases. “The matter will be kept under review”.
Volkswagen has stopped sales in the 28-country European Union of the remaining new cars that contain the diesel engine fitted with the software that was used to cheat on US emissions tests.
And it could well have gone undetected, but for the on-road testing of emissions of Volkswagen diesel cars by West Virginia University, at the behest of a non-profit, the global Council on Clean Transportation, during 2013 and 2014.
Volkswagen is trying to minimize the damage to its reputation and deliveries from the scandal, which probably will result in large fines and already forced Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn to step down.
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Asked about the number of people who might have known about the cheating, a spokesman at company headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, said: “We are working intensely to investigate who knew what and when, but it’s far too early to tell”. “VW would have had to reconfigure the software for each generation of engines”, the U.S. official said. “I don’t believe it”.
