Automotive company Volkswagen and its concerned subsidiaries, Audi and Porsche, previously proposed a recall action to address long-running concerns about its manufactured diesel-powered vehicles.
Filed with the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the plans submitted were supposed to have included details about how its 3-liter diesel-powered vehicles — Volkswagen Touareg, Porsche Cayenne and Audi A8 — purportedly cheated stringent U.S. emission tests; an estimated 16,000 of these vehicles currently operate around the state. CARB found the documents to be insufficient and has since then rejected the proposal as revealed in an announcement this Wednesday, July 13.
"VW's and Audi's submissions are incomplete, substantially deficient, and fall far short of meeting the legal requirements to return these vehicles to the claimed certified configuration," writes CARB in a letter addressed to the Volkswagen group of companies.
Similar allegations made back in later 2015 claim that 2-liter diesel engines manufactured by the company were outfitted with an engine control unit (ECU) software, or basically a defeat device, that makes the results of emission tests likely inconclusive. These devices reportedly circumvented standard tests to hide the fact that the engine actually emits nine times more than the permitted amount of nitrogen oxide emission, effectively violating the Clean Air Act.
CARB, alongside the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has been led to conclude that the same thing is happening to Volkswagen's 3-liter engines, though, there has been insufficient data to support these claims and the automotive company has been rather lapse in providing the needed information.
The board explains that the lack of full disclosure from the company is making it hard for them to determine if the proposed plans would actually work. Volkswagen's submitted reports, to put simply, are rather vague and do not outline the exact procedures the company will be undertaking to supposedly fix its vehicle's emission ratings. There's no mention of any effects these actions will cause to the "car's driveability or durability" as well.
As such it's back to the drawing boards for Volkswagen which is seemingly fully cooperative with the concerned authorities and has called the rejection a mere "procedural step" under the law. The company will continue to work with CARB and EPA to find a working solution soon — else risk losing a couple more billions in an extreme scenario buying back all affected 3-liter diesel vehicles manufactured from 2009 until recently.
The company already settled for $15 billion in a recent report to pay for damages caused in a settlement case involving its post-2009 2-liter diesel engines.
