California and federal regulators rejected Volkswagen’s attempt to recall almost 500,000 vehicles containing software that allowed them to cheat emissions tests.
The California Air Resources Board said it told VW its plans for a recall in the United States were not good enough. According to the regulator, the plan was not specific enough, contained gaps, didn’t have enough information on proposed repairs to the affected vehicles and didn’t address the overall problems caused by the scheme.
The Environmental Protection Agency said it concurred with the decision.
“EPA agrees with CARB that Volkswagen has not submitted an approvable recall plan to bring the vehicles into compliance and reduce pollution. EPA has conveyed this to the company previously,” the agency said.
“Volkswagen made a decision to cheat on emissions tests and then tried to cover it up,” said Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the regulator. “They continued and compounded the lie and when they were caught they tried to deny it. The result is thousands of tons of nitrogen oxide that have harmed the health of Californians. They need to make it right. Today’s action is a step in the direction of assuring that will happen.”
The German automaker is in hot water in the United States as the Department of Justice announced its U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit is investigating the company’s “defeat devices.”
A “defeat device” is millions of lines of software code that recognized when emissions tests were taking place and would limit the amount of nitrogen being released into the atmosphere. The company has admitted to installing the software in hundreds of thousands of “clean diesel” vehicles in the U.S. and millions worldwide.
When the vehicle was no longer in testing mode, the software would switch back to a regular drive mode that would spew up to 40 times more nitrogen than legally allowed into the atmosphere.
The lawsuit says Volkswagen equipped its 2.0-liter and 3.0-liter, clean diesel vehicles with the defeat device software. In total, about 585,000 vehicles are covered by the lawsuit.
The decision handed down by the California Air Resource Board only deals with the 2.0-liter vehicles, which account for about 482,000 vehicles in the U.S.
Volkswagen CEO Matthias Mueller is scheduled to meet with EPA administrators in Washington on Wednesday. Plans for a recall are among the issues expected to be discussed.
