On Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board announced that VW had not yet submitted a recall and fix plan that met the agencies’ approval. With billions of dollars mounting in federal fines, and no clear plan on the table as to how to address the ongoing emissions problems of those vehicles still on the road, the rejection of its proposal to shore up the damage may be the least of VW’s problems.
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The air-quality office, which found the “defeat” emissions-cheating device in the first place, said in a statement that the Volkswagen proposals were “incomplete, substantially deficient and falls far short of meeting the legal requirements”.
“We are committed to working cooperatively with CARB and other regulators”. Sales in the second half of 2015 dropped by as much as 25% in some regions of the country, in large part because without EPA approval the company was forbidden to sell new and certain certified used diesel cars – which typically account for about 25% of overall sales.
CARB head Mary Nichols said: “Volkswagen made a decision to cheat on emissions tests and then tried to cover it up”.
Volkswagen Group of America CEO Michael Horn told reporters at a VW event Sunday night that the talks were “political” in nature rather than technical, describing them as a discussion about “the process so far and what do we need to do in order to finalize the process on a political level”.
While VW has been moving forward with approved plans to recall millions of vehicles outside the USA, the automaker knew US vehicles would be a hard challenge.
The straight-spoken Mueller may have touched a nerve with US authorities as well, ahead of a Wednesday meeting with EPA chief Gina McCarthy.
Volkswagen may buy back tens of thousands of cars with diesel engines that can’t be easily fixed to comply with USA emissions standards as part of its efforts to satisfy the demands of regulators, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Wolfsburg, we have a problem.
WASHINGTON – The California Air Resources Board (Carb) has rejected Volkswagen’s (VW’s) plan to fix 2.0 litre diesel cars equipped with software that allows them to emit up to 40 times legally allowable pollution.
The regulators have also rejected VW’s request for more time to finalize a fix, however, CARB did clarify that the rejection does not preclude a recall.
Earlier, the EPA reportedly said Volkswagen danced around the issue for year before coming clean.
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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.
