VW Plan to Fix US Diesel Vehicles Rejected

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) on Tuesday rejected a proposal by Volkswagen Group to fix the defeat device on the company’s 2.0-liter turbo-diesel vehicles. CARB said in its ruling that the company’s recall plan was “deemed incomplete.”

VW responded that the rejection only applies to its initial recall plan submitted in December and that the company has been meeting with CARB to address a framework for resolving the cheating scandal.

The group’s CEO, Matthias Mueller, didn’t help the company’s cause on Sunday when he told reporters at the Detroit auto show that VW didn’t lie to regulators when the company was questioned about the defeat device on the company’s turbo-diesel cars. He went on to say that the cheating was a “technical issue” in what appeared to be an attempt at soft-pedaling what VW actually did.

Mueller backtracked on Monday, saying, “We fully accept the violation. There’s no doubt about it.” A VW spokesman is cited at Automotive News explaining what led to Mueller’s statement on Sunday:

This was a very extreme situation in which this interview took place. Mueller was standing in a crowd of journalists with questions being shouted at him in different languages. One question obviously was misinterpreted, taken out of context maybe ….

Right.
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Mueller is scheduled to meet Wednesday with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy, and presumably by then he’ll have gotten his story straight.

The CARB rejection of VW’s recall plan did not contain any details, but did say that the plan fell short in several areas, including:

• The proposed plans contain gaps and lack sufficient detail.
• The descriptions of proposed repairs lack enough information for a technical evaluation.
• The proposals do not adequately address overall impacts on vehicle performance, emissions and safety.

The rejection does not apply to VW vehicles equipped with the 3.0-liter turbo-diesel. The company’s proposed recall plan for those vehicles is due February 2.