VW Diesels Have New Software Affecting Emissions Tests

Those models still have not been certified for sale by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

VW has admitted to installing the defeat devices on Volkswagen and Audi cars with four-cylinder diesel engines dating to the 2009 model year.

On Tuesday, EPA Assistant Administrator Janet McCabe said that American regulators had not yet determined if the device’s use in Volkswagen’s 2016 diesel models is legal.

Thousands of 2016 Beetles, Golfs, Jettas and Passats will remain quarantined in USA ports until a fix can be developed, approved and carried out.

It would appear the EV Phaeton, which is due out in 2020, will be the death of a new diesel version of their luxury full-size sedan.

VW on Monday said the EPA is evaluating the new software device, and that the automaker is “working with the regulators to continue the 2016 certification process” for VW vehicles equipped with the 2.0-liter diesel engine. The system apparently quickly heats up the NOx trap – the device that traps harmful nitrogen oxides from diesel exhaust – which makes it perform better.

“We have been cooperating with all of the agencies that have come to us”, said Jeannine Ginivan, a spokeswoman for Volkswagen.

“I can confirm that the FTC is coordinating with other federal agencies who are investigating Volkswagen”, an FTC spokesperson said, in an email to AFP.

Automakers routinely place auxiliary emissions management units on passenger automobiles, although they’re required by regulation to reveal them as a part of the method to obtain the emissions certifications which are required to promote the automobiles.

EPA’s McCabe wouldn’t say if VW’s failure to disclose the software in its 2016 applications was illegal.

If VW was cheating a second time, that would probably mean higher fines against the company, said Kelley Blue Book Senior Analyst Karl Brauer.

But of those questioned, more than half said they would not buy a VW diesel in the future. “The punitive actions from the EPA are exclusively going to get extra aggressive”.

Top Volkswagen executives said a few rogue software developers who wrote the original code were to blame but if another so-called “defeat device” is found on the new redesigned software, it would cast serious doubt on their claims.

Paul Willis, the managing director of VW United Kingdom, told MPs on Monday that the recall of vehicles may not be completed by the end of 2016 and that it was premature to discuss compensation.

AP first reported October 7 that the EPA and California Air Resources Board have been investigating “the character and function” of further software on the new VW fashions, however on the time each the corporate and regulators declined to offer particulars about what the system does or the way it works.