Volkswagen’s attempts to fix its diesel troubles are going terribly

The California Air Resources Board rejected Volkswagen’s recall proposals for its 2.0 liter diesels, and the federal Environmental Protection Agency agreed the plan was not acceptable.

The California Air Resources Board said Tuesday that the plan did not meet its standards and was ‘unacceptable’.

The German automaker reiterated Tuesday that it’s committed to cooperating with regulators in California and elsewhere and said it will present a reworked proposal to the EPA tomorrow at the meeting in Washington.

Today’s rejection concerns VW’s 2.0L diesel engines and not the 3.0L engines. Volkswagen is scheduled to submit a fix plan for the 3.0-liter vehicles by February 2.

Following the company’s admission last September that it installed “defeat devices” on 11 million diesel-powered cars across the world to cheat emissions tests, things have gone from bad to worse.

The CARB cited three reasons for the rejection: “gaps and a lack of sufficient detail”, a lack of “enough information for a technical evaluation”, and – perhaps most damningly – a claim that “the proposals do not adequately address overall impacts on vehicle performance, emissions and safety”.

Still, California’s rejection of VW’s initial recall plans will complicate the automaker’s efforts to put the scandal behind it.

“Volkswagen has been working on an additional potential fix involving the catalytic converter”, said Rebecca Lindland, senior analyst for Kelley Blue Book. “Since then, Volkswagen has had constructive discussions with CARB, including last week when we discussed a framework to remediate the (diesel) emissions issue”. CARB’s statement today noted that Volkswagen Group submitted its recall plans to CARB on December 15 and at the same time requested an extension of unspecified length to submit “complete recall plans”. “However, it’s unfortunate because it continues to delay getting consumers the answers and solutions they want, need and deserve”.

That’s despite VW CEO Matthias Müller, who took over after USA authorities uncovered the scandal past year, stating in an interview with U.S. public broadcaster NPR on Tuesday that the company “did not lie” to USA regulators about emission problems with its diesel engines.

“Volkswagen made a decision to cheat on emissions tests and then tried to cover it up”, said CARB chair Mary Nichols in a statement. (The defeat device at the center of the issue rigs vehicles to perform differently on the road than they do in tests.) Volkswagen just misunderstood what the EPA was asking, Mueller said.