California regulators reject Volkswagen recall plan

The California Air Resources Board, commonly known as CARB, rejected Volkswagen Group of America’s submitted recall plan for its 2.0-liter diesel vehicles on Tuesday, citing insufficient details in its plan as the reasoning behind its rejection.

The California Air Resources Board said Volkswagen’s plan was unacceptable for a variety of reasons, including that it did not adequately identify the affected vehicles; did not include a sufficient method for obtaining the auto owners’ names and addresses and did not include adequate information on how the fix would affect future emissions results.

It said it would continue its investigation as well as talks with VW to find a suitable solution.

VW CEO Matthias Mueller meets tomorrow (Wednesday) with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy.

The company is considering installing a new catalytic converter in hundreds of thousands of tainted diesel-powered vehicles and must prove to regulators that the fix will bring them into compliance with emissions rules.

Volkswagen submitted a recall plan to CARB late previous year regarding the diesel engines equipped with emissions-cheating software sold between 2009 and 2015.

The company has struggled to agree with US authorities on a fix for cars fitted with the emissions test cheating devices. Discussions with USA regulators continue.

Swedish prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation related to the emissions scandal at German automaker Volkswagen. CARB did not detail what exactly Volkswagen had proposed to do to make its affected vehicles compliant with emissions standards.

In this statement, CARB says it’s issued a notice of violation to VW.

“It is my point of view, I tell you we are working together with the EPA and also with the [California regulators] for three months, and from our point of view we did huge progress”, Mueller said, according to the Associated Press.

VW has concluded it would be cheaper to repurchase some of the more than 500,000 vehicles than fix them, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.