California environmental regulators said Tuesday they were rejecting VW’s recall plan for 2-liter diesel engines in part because it did not adequately identify the affected vehicles and did not include adequate information on how the fix would affect future emissions results.
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On Tuesday, officials from the two agencies said that plans submitted by Volkswagen weren’t sufficient enough for a technical evaluation to be made. The proposals also failed to address how the fix would affect the engine’s performance, emissions and vehicle safety.
A recall plan for 3.0-liter diesel engines, including some sold under the VW-owned Audi and Porsche brands, is due next month.
The plan submitted by VW in November to modify its 2.0-liter four-cylinder TDI diesel models has been rejected by the regulatory agencies that must approve those fixes.
CARB (California Air Resources Board) chair Mary D. Nichols didn’t mince words in today’s release, “Volkswagen made a decision to cheat on emissions tests and then tried to cover it up”.
At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week, Herbert Diess, chairman of Volkswagen passenger cars, was contrite and vowed to make things right with the automaker’s customers. “And we had some targets for our technical engineers, and they solved this problem and reached targets with some software solutions which haven’t been compatible to the American law”.
The scandal eventually spread around the world – affecting more than 11 million cars.
VW has concluded it would be cheaper to repurchase some of the more than 500,000 vehicles than fix them, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
“Mr. Mueller’s comments are disturbing, especially in light of the company’s continued lack of cooperation with our investigation, and they underscore the importance of our inquiry as well as the investigations launched by other regulators”, Jepson said in a statement Tuesday. “Volkswagen will continue to fully cooperate”.
The straight-spoken Mueller may have touched a nerve with USA authorities as well, ahead of a Wednesday meeting with EPA chief Gina McCarthy.
CARB did not assess any immediate penalties, but it issued a new notice that VW had violated California air quality regulations.
In the same statement from KBB, the company’s senior analyst Karl Brauer speculates that the industry may hear as soon as tomorrow whether or not the next iteration of VW’s plan submissions has been accepted by CARB. CARB said in its ruling that the company’s recall plan was “deemed incomplete”.
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Both parties remained tight lipped on the deal, however Mr Mueller had earlier said he planned to present ideas for how the company could fix the diesel engines.
