VW’s diesel fix plan rejected by the United States regulators

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) said Tuesday that it had rejected the proposed plan.

VW global CEO Matthias Mueller met Wednesday with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy in Washington.

The submission of the recall plan by Volkswagen for the 3-litre diesel cars is due to CARB on February 2, 2016.

But out on the road, Volkswagen’s diesel cars have been spewing far more toxic emissions than regulations allow and are in violation of laws like the US Clean Air Act.

The company later admitted a similar “defeat device” was also included in about 85,000 diesel vehicles with 3.0-liter engines, including some Audi and Porsche SUVs.

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.

Its first proposal to fix the 2.0 liter cars was rejected by CARB and EPA on Tuesday.

Volkswagen said in a statement that the rejection affects proposals that it presented to CARB officials in December.

According to CARB, Volkswagen’s proposal does not properly address the engine, the vehicle’s overall operation, and all the related emission control technologies. Besides being forced to recall and somehow fix the cars to make them genuinely compliant with emissions rules, VW faces fines of up to $18 billion from USA regulators for installing the software on nearly 500,000 US cars.

It also said it was continuing its own investigations and would maintain its dialogue with Volkswagen to find a solution to the issue, which was messily unfurled to the public just a week after the Frankfurt motor show in September previous year. “If they are already close to a workable solution we might get a finalized, approved plan tomorrow”.

Volkswagen CEO Matthias Mueller said last weekend he believed a new catalytic converter could be fitted to most affected vehicles in a way that would satisfy regulators, but apparently this wasn’t enough.

In advance of that meeting, EPA issued a statement saying it agrees with California “that Volkswagen has not submitted an approvable recall plan to bring the vehicles into compliance and reduce pollution”. This week, we have been working with [US mediator] Kenneth Feinberg to develop a swift, fair and independent program, which will provide a comprehensive remedy for our customers.

“We are committed to working cooperatively with CARB and other regulators”.