California rejects VW’s latest plan to fix illegal diesels

In this September 30, 2015, photo, John Swanton, spokesman with the California Air Resources Board, explains how a 2013 Volkswagen Passat with a diesel engine is evaluated at the emissions test lab in El Monte, Calif. California air quality regulators, on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016, rejected Volkswagen’s recall plan to fix vehicles including the Beetle and Jetta that were programmed to trick government emissions tests.

“We know that Volkswagen is putting together a plan to repurchase vehicles, to offer some compensations, to fix cars, etc.”, Murphy said. They need to make it right.

A glimmer of hope is that VW told USA Today and media outlets, alike, Tuesday, that the rejection of its proposed recall pertains to a fix blueprint submitted to US regulators and CARB in December, and since then that the automaker has had significant conversations with CARB.

CARB’s decision comes just a day before Volkswagen CEO Matthias Müller will appear before federal regulators at the EPA to present a fix for cars with defeat devices on them. This rejection won’t necessarily throw a wrench in the conversations between the automaker and the EPA or CARB, but it is yet another setback in what is already a protracted debacle.

CARB said it would continue to work with the carmaker and the EPA to find a solution, but emphasised the danger to public health that Volkswagen continued to pose. The CARB’s letter to the auto manufacturer did note that, “today’s actions do not preclude a recall or other remedy”. The EPA is pursuing its own enforcement actions against the company.

This cheating made it possible for Volkswagen Group of America to obtain Executive Orders from CARB and Certificates of Conformity from EPA for these diesel vehicles so they could sell in California.

EPA said in a statement it agreed with California “that Volkswagen has not submitted an approvable recall plan to bring the vehicles into compliance and reduce pollution”. During the North American International Auto Show on Monday, Volkswagen CEO Matthias Muller said the company had not lied about the installation of software that detected when cars were undergoing emissions testing and then changed their performance metrics.

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. “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”.

Clegern says if that can’t be done, VW may have to buy back its vehicles.