VW cheating software may be on more vehicles, EPA says

As for the 3.0-liter engines, Audi, which developed the unit, recently met with the EPA and CARB to discuss the issue and on Monday said it will submit for US approval a software update that will see the affected engines return to the right side of the regulations.

California Air Resources Board spokesman Dave Clegern said Audi admitted that the vehicles had auxiliary emissions control equipment that was not disclosed to the United States government.

Based on this information, EPA and CARB will continue to investigate and take all appropriate action under their respective authorities.

The new disclosure covers a total of 85,000 vehicles, the EPA said.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday said that the probe now involves all Volkswagen and Audi models with a larger 3.0-liter diesel engine from model years 2009 through 2016.

The rigged emissions control systems discovered on Volkswagen Group vehicles are more widespread than previously thought, federal officials said.

Many VW owners are angry at the automaker and want the manufacturer to buy back their cars.

The German automaker met a late Friday deadline in offering a plan to fix the 482,000 diesel vehicles sold in the US that it acknowledges were outfitted with devices to cheat pollution tests.

The admissions about the 3.0-liter engines come on top of the previous revelations that similar cheating software had been installed on VW’s smaller 2.0-liter TDI engines for the 2009 to 2015 model years. That is in stark contrast to the massive and expensive recall that Volkswagen has to do for 500,000 vehicles using its 2.0-liter diesel engine.

“The most unfortunate aspect of this whole situation for Volkswagen is they have to start the healing process and the repairing process for their brand, and you can’t do that while the scandal is still growing”, Kelley Blue Book analyst Karl Brauer said in an interview.

Volkswagen CEO Matthias Mueller says the company’s board has chose to reduce capital expenditures by 1 billion euros ($1.07 billion) in 2016 as it deals with the fallout of its emissions-rigging scandal. The agencies will work together with Volkswagen to develop a national recall plan.