Volkswagen may shell out $10.2 billion, with about three-fourths of that money going to the owners of the more than 482,000 cars implicated in the company's emissions scandal, according to the Associated Press.
The news could be made official as soon as next Tuesday — that's if amendments to the proposed settlement aren't made between now and then, a pair of unnamed sources told the AP.
Should the deal remain as it currently is, Volkswagen would buy back as many of the vehicles as it could reasonably repair.
About 482,000 cars were found to be putting out up to 40 times the threshold set by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The 2-liter diesel cars were programmed to fool the EPA's emission testings by outputting pollutants within the acceptable threshold while being tested in a laboratory environment. But outside the scrutiny of regulators and their benchmarks, the cars would return to spewing out 40 times the permissible amounts of nitrogen oxides.
Volkswagen is expected to pay each of the car owners between $1,000 and $7,000 and will attempt to repair as many of the automobiles as it can, at no cost to the consumers. The company isn't expected to be able to repair all of the cars in question, which may result in additional fines being assessed and placed into environmental funds.
"This settlement will provide substantial benefits to both consumers and the environment — providing car owners and lessees fair value for their vehicles, while also removing environmentally harmful vehicles from the road," Elizabeth Cabraser, lead counsel for the plaintiff's steering committee, said in an e-mail shared with Bloomberg.
Back in May 2015, the University of West Virginia's Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines and Emissions alerted the EPA that something was off with the emission scores of hundreds of thousands of Volkswagen's diesel-powered cars. And a few months later, the EPA sent the German automaker a Notice of Violation.
The cars implicated in Volkswagen's emissions scandal include Jetta (Model Years 2009 through 2015); Beetle (Model Years 2009 through 2015); Audi A3 (Model Years 2009 through 2015); Golf (Model Years 2009 through 2015); and Passat (Model Years 2014 through 2015).
Despite taking what was expected to be a huge hit in brand loyalty, Volkswagen's Audi brand has been a bright spot for the company during this scandal and had already been a rock star in the years prior. Back in February, Audi topped Consumer Reports' 2016 list of best auto brands.
