California Regulators Reject VW Recall Plan

Volkswagen’s plan to clean up its 2.0-liter diesel-powered cars is “incomplete, substantially deficient and falls far short of meeting the legal requirements”, the California Air Resources Board said today.

The rejection does not apply to VW vehicles equipped with the 3.0-liter turbo-diesel. The company is due to submit another recall proposal for the affected 3.0 liter vehicles by February 2.

Both CARB and the EPA must approve Volkswagen’s plans before the company can proceed with a recall.

“Volkswagen made a decision to cheat on emissions tests and then tried to cover it up”, says CARB Chair Mary Nichols.

It’s possible that they may need SCR systems to meet emissions standards, which could cost thousands of dollars per auto and greatly extend the duration of any recall.

Along with the rejection, CARB also notified VW on Tuesday with a reiteration of the latter’s violations of California air quality regulations associated with VW’s use of “defeat devices” in those vehicles.

This news increases the pressure on Volkswagen ahead of talks between its chief executive, Matthias Müller, and Gina McCarthy, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, scheduled for Wednesday. 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.

It also insisted Volkswagen was not moving fast enough to deliver the fix to its half-million affected owners of 2.0-litre turbo-diesel engines in the US.

The agency’s reply elaborated its decision without specifying what kinds of technical changes the automaker had proposed, though its complete reply to the automaker contained documents which had not been made public on CARB’s website. The agency doesn’t know how long it will take for VW to fix the vehicles, he added.

Those remarks echo ones from the EPA assistant administrator Cynthia Giles, who said last week that the legal action would set the agency and Volkswagen “on a path to resolution”. “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”.

“We are really anxious to find a way for that company to get into compliance, and we’re not there yet”, McCarthy said.

“Mr. Mueller’s comments are disturbing, especially in light of the company’s continued lack of cooperation with our investigation, and they underscore the importance of our inquiry as well as the investigations launched by other regulators”, Jepson said in a statement Tuesday.