Volkswagen denied the presence of “defeat devices” on 10,000 vehicles identified by regulators on Monday afternoon in a fresh round of violations announcements.
In a statement released following the EPA’s announcement, the German automaker denied the presence of software that allows the vehicles to tell when they are undergoing emissions tests. That software allows vehicles to release nine times the nitrogen oxide allowed by law, EPA officials said Monday.
“Volkswagen AG wishes to emphasize that no software has been installed in the 3-liter V6 diesel power units to alter emissions characteristics in a forbidden manner,” the company said in a statement. “Volkswagen will cooperate fully with the EPA to clarify this matter in its entirety.
The EPA issued a second notice of violations to Volkswagen AG, Audi AG and Volkswagen Group of America, with a first notice of violation to Porsche AG and Porsche Cars North America. The companies fall under Volkswagen’s corporate umbrella.
The models covered under the latest notice of violation are the 2014 VW Touareg, the 2015 Porsche Cayenne and the 2016 Audi A6 Quattro, A7 Quattro, A8, A-L and Q5. The latest notice of violation, according to the EPA, affects about 10,000 vehicles in the United States.
The EPA says about 482,000 Volkswagen vehicles in the United States were affected by the first notice of violation announced in September.
It’s the first time a Porsche has been caught up in the emissions scandal, in which Volkswagen has been caught using defeat devices to get around emissions testing.
The defeat device is about 100 million lines of software code written into the vehicle’s programming.
The software could tell if a test was taking place based on the position of the vehicle’s steering wheel, the speed the vehicle was traveling, how long the engine was being used and barometric pressure, according to the EPA. The vehicles would reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide during testing and then spew 40 times the legal limit during normal use.
Officials at the German auto giant are blaming “rogue software engineers” for creating the rigging system.
Company officials have said the defeat devices were isolated incidents, but the discovery of additional models with the software were discovered by enhanced EPA and California Air Resources Board testing, officials said in a press call Monday.
The maximum fine the EPA could hand out for each vehicle with a defeat device is $37,500, meaning Volkswagen could face a fine of about $18.5 billion with the additional vehicles caught up in the latest round of testing. It’s not clear if that fine could increase now that Volkswagen has been served multiple violation notices for the same offense.
Volkswagen is once again under fire from members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of two congressional committees investigating the scandal.
“The latest revelations raise the question, where does VW’s road of deceit end? The EPA expanding its investigation prompts questions regarding the prevalence of the emissions cheating and how it went undetected for so long,” said full Committee Chairman Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Ranking Member Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., and Ranking Member Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo. “Our bipartisan investigation continues — it’s time for Volkswagen to fully come clean.”
