California officials on Tuesday rejected Volkswagen’s plans to recall and fix 75,688 diesel cars equipped with software to cheat on air pollution tests, saying the proposals lacked so many key details that the state couldn’t tell whether they would work.
Advertisement
A separate document made public from the negotiations said Volkswagen’s plans to fix the huge problem they created for Califorinia air quality “contain gaps and lack sufficient detail” with not enough technical information to ensure they will succeed.
The state said VW’s proposed fix was “incomplete, substantially deficient and falls far short of meeting the legal requirements”.
The rejection by CARB and the EPA also comes two days after Volkswagen CEO Matthias Mueller said of his company’s reaction to the EPA’s findings, “We didn’t lie”. “Since then, Volkswagen has had constructive discussions with CARB, including last week when we discussed a framework to remediate the” issue, VW said.
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. Volkswagen is scheduled to submit a fix plan for the 3.0-liter vehicles by February 2.
Mueller wouldn’t say if the company plans to buy back any of the cars.
Volkswagen noted in a statement that the rejection applies to a plan submitted to regulators in December. He went on to say that the cheating was a “technical issue” in what appeared to be an attempt at soft-pedaling what VW actually did. VW seems to be having trouble meeting demands that it solve the emissions problem without affecting performance.
Grudler said this was because, at the time, the EPA tested only passenger cars in the lab. It did have the technology to test emissions in real-world driving situations, but it only did those tests on heavy-duty diesel trucks.
The corporation plans to install a new catalytic converter in thousands of its vehicles having infected diesel-powered vehicles and it should prove to regulators that this fix will enable the company to comply with emission regulations.
VW has admitted using software that circumvented US and California pollution rules by fully activating the exhaust scrubbing systems only when a vehicle was being put through precisely prescribed government emissions tests.
“It’s obvious the EPA and CARB are seeking a very specific and comprehensive resolution plan”, he said.
Advertisement
Representative Tim Murphy, the Pennsylvania Republican who chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigations subcommittee that is conducting a probe of the VW scandal, said Tuesday that he doesn’t want penalties imposed that would endanger the company.
