The California Air Resources Board and The United States Environment Protection Agency has approved to have German car maker, Volkswagen, repair its vehicles. Around 70,000 of the vehicles that were affected by the 2015 dieselgate scandal would be part of the repair. Volkswagen admitted to installing a device in some of their models on 2015 to pass emission tests.
New Software And Hardware Need to Be Installed
2015 models of Volkswagen Jetta, Pascal, Beetle, Beetle Convertible, Golf, Golf Sportwagen and Audi A3 would be part of the repairs. Volkswagen stated that the car's computer would have to be reprogrammed and additional hardware would have to be installed. The German company guarantees that the software and hardware installation would not affect the cars fuel economy.
ATwo-Phasee Plan To Resolve The Scandal
Owners of affected Volkswagen vehicles need to understand that it would be a two-phase plan to get their cars repaired. The vehicles would need to be brought to Volkswagen dealerships first in order for them to remove the defeat device that was initially installed to cheat emission tests. The second phase would then have the car computer software reprogrammed. Additional hardware like a new diesel particulate filter, diesel oxidation catalyst and NOx catalyst would also be installed during the second phase.
The resolution to repair the affected vehicles by Volkswagen was requested on the latter part of 2016, but only received approval this January. It would take at least one year for Volkswagen to complete the repairs as the new hardware is not yet available until late 2016. The two-phase plan is part of the $15 billion dollar settlement that has been approved by a federal judge in October 2016.
2009 Year Models And Below Is Still A Pending Case
The repairs would not include Volkswagen and Audi cars that came out in 2009 and below. Although, Volkswagen as already submitted a request to include car models from year 2009 and below added to the repairs. Vehicles with 3liter diesel engines are not part of this fix and are on a different settlement case.
36 Thousand Has Already Been Bought Back, 100 Thousand More
Volkswagen had previously given vehicle owners to either have the company repair their cars, or to sell their cars back to the company. Volkswagen can also pay owners up to $10,000 dollars, depending on how old their cars are. More than 36,000 had already been bought back by Volkswagen as of January 3. 130,000 vehicles are also scheduled for buy back in the future.
On a different settlement case, EPA agreed with Volkswagen to give a settlement to the owners of 80,000 3liter diesel engine cars on December. The settlement would come from the $1 billion dollar agreed amount. Owners of 20,000 vehicles would have a choice to let Volkswagen buyback their cars. 60,000 of the vehicles can be repaired so no additional buyback would be offered to the owners of these vehicles
Due to the scandal, Volkswagen has declined eight percent in sales in 2015 and has been struggling to save their reputation. A lot of people still support the German company as Audi sales even went up by four percent. Volkswagen will continue issuing resolution to bring its former German engineered cars back to its former glory.
