USA state attorneys general say otherwise. The complaint further alleges that Volkswagen violated the Clean Air Act by selling, introducing into commerce, or importing into the United States motor vehicles that are designed differently from what Volkswagen had stated in applications for certification to EPA and the California Air Resources Board (CARB).
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Jepsen said state AGs will work “to hold Volkswagen accountable for its behavior to the extent possible under the law, and we will seek to use any means available to us to conduct a thorough investigation of Volkswagen’s conduct”.
“Our most important task in 2106 is to solve the current diesel issue”, Diess said.
“We continue to believe that no one is able to make anything else than a wild guess on potential fines”, he said.
“We are confident that we will find good solutions for affected USA vehicles and our valued customers”, Diess said.
Volkswagen however in a statement said that it hoped to fix all the vehicles (8.5 million diesel cars) which it sold in Europe which do not cater to the emission standards by the end of 2016. In addition, the firm and its directors could face criminal charges; all added to private class-action lawsuits filed by VW owners.
Volkswagen Board of Management member Herbert Diess apologized over the emissions scandal during a 2016 Consumer Electronic Show keynote speech where he also unveiled a futuristic electric concept van: the BUDD-e.
But quickly after those formalities, he launched into a 4-minute apology, touching on various aspects of the scandal, one which arose previous year after USA regulators discovered that VW used illegal software to get around emissions standards. Still, that information may not be passed to American investigators, as Germany’s privacy laws are generally stricter than those in the US.
To win the suit, the government will not have to prove that VW intentionally deceived regulators or customers by installing the defeat devices, only that the cheating occurred. “I don’t think there is any defense in a civil suit”, he said.
Vehicles operating with the so-called defeat devices emitted up to 40 times the amount of nitrogen oxides allowable under USA emissions regulations, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
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The company first acknowledged in September that the cheating software was included in its diesel cars and SUVs sold since the 2009 model year, as well as some recent diesel models sold by the VW-owned Audi and Porsche brands. At the same time, the Department of Justice sued, raising the specter of multibillion-dollar fines. EPA’s primary emissions-testing lab is located in Ann Arbor and Volkswagen also has facilities in the Detroit metro area.
