California orders VW recall of 3-liter diesel engines

The huge German automaker is now being scrutinized and investigated for possible tax evasion. It has already set aside some 8.7 billion euro ($9 billion) to deal with the scandal.

Volkswagen’s emissions test result falsification resulted in lower carbon dioxide readings for some of its vehicles. That is a violation of law, according to the letter. The process requires the identification of individuals to attach responsibility to. Five suspects are being investigated, Ziehe said, without identifying them.

The investigation has been spurred by Volkswagen’s admission that many of its claimed Carbon dioxide emissions figures were “implausible”.

Long story short: For at least some of the 482,000 vehicles in the USA with the 2.0 liter TDI engines in question, there isn’t going to be a cheap way out. The 3.0-litre V6 diesel engine in question is being developed by Audi and is used in the U.S. models A6, A7, A8, Q5 and Q7 from model year 2009 onwards, while Volkswagen uses the engine in the Touareg and Porsche powers its Cayenne since model year 2013. Until someone tests pre- and post-fix cars back to back, it will be hard to know what effect the proposed solutions will have. At www.volkswagen.de/info every customer can enter their vehicle identification number to obtain clear information. The Whistleblower program has been initiated to expose culprits.

California air quality regulators on Wednesday demanded a recall of up to 16,000 additional Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche diesels as the Volkswagen emissions scandal widened. “It will take several months before there are conclusive findings”, he said, according to excerpts of his speech seen by various news organizations.

There is a growing list of official probes against the automaker since the diesel crisis started in September, 2015.

There are three sizes of four-cylinder diesel engines, and each will require its own fix.

Volkswagen has acknowledged it produced 11 million vehicles worldwide with small diesel engines that contained software allowing them to cheat nitrogen oxide tests.

“The efforts [needed] to carry out the refits are technically, mechanically and financially manageable”, Mueller told at meeting of about 1,000 VW managers at the company’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany.