California regulators said Tuesday they have rejected Volkswagen’s recall plan for some of its most popular diesel models, including the Passat and the Jetta, that used software to intentionally deceive government emissions tests.
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While the company refused to comment on the report by Bild am Sonntag, the paper reported that Volkswagen’s CEO, Matthias Mueller, will hope to convince at least a few EPA officials at a meeting in Washington, scheduled for Wednesday, in light of these recent findings. Part of the proposal will be an offer by the German company to repurchase some of the affected U.S. cars, said Mueller, but declined to elaborate.
“It is not just our cars we have to fix”, Müller said, “it’s our credibility”.
“I apologize for what went wrong at Volkswagen”, Müller said Sunday ahead of the Detroit Auto Show.
Mr. Müller told The Wall Street Journal on the sidelines of a company’s event on the eve of the Detroit Motor Show that he planned to present Ms. McCarthy a “package solution” to fixing almost 600,000 tainted diesel vehicles sold in the U.S.
Volkswagen now succeeds on limiting what the investigators know, but it won’t be too long before the attorneys general will find a way to expose those internal papers.
“Winning back trust also means improving our strategy here in the United States”, Diess said before announcing plans to beef up VW’s offerings of sport-utility vehicles popular with American consumers.
Global deliveries for the Volkswagen group dropped below the 10 million-car milestone reached a year ago as the Chinese market slowed and the company’s cheating on diesel emissions deterred customers.
The request may ease pressure on VW, which has been struggling to comply with US disclosure requests amid strict German privacy rules. The former head of VW’s Porsche sports vehicle brand in September replaced Martin Winterkorn, who was forced out when the manipulation scandal came to light.
While showing off the Electric BUDD-e concept at the North American International Auto Show, Volkswagen Chairman Dr. Herbert Diess took the opportunity to address the ongoing EPA scandal.
The investment at VW’s Chattanooga plant will create approximately 2,000 jobs, Mueller said.
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Saying VW has been slow to provide information even with documents based in the US, government investigators say it’s absurd to apply German laws outside of the German legal system.
