As VW of America chief Michael Horn explained he didn’t know how the diesel cheating could happen to a dais of angry U.S. congressmen, the California Air Resources Board informed VW it better have a plan in place to fix the problem by Nov. 20.
The deadline comes 45 days after the automaker received a compliance letter on Sept. 18 regarding the diesel issue. Not only that, it appears that California officials are going to start testing other diesels from automakers other than VW to ensure they are compliant.
Thus far, no other automakers have come forward or been caught failing to meet federal or state emissions standards or cheating to make them. VW estimates that it may have as many as 11 million diesels with the cheating software in the U.S.
The large number has given way to hundreds of lawsuits, including 250 class-action suits and separate actions taken by 45 states and Washington D.C. In fact, the state of Texas filed two suits against Volkswagen: one for restitution for customers and a second suit asking for an injunction as well as civil penalties against the automaker.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement, “When companies willfully violate the public’s trust, a penalty must be paid.” Paxton added there were about 32,000 affected vehicles purchased at the state’s 49 VW dealerships. The civil penalties Texas is asking for is for pollution fines. The fines range from $50 and $25,000 per vehicle for each day the vehicles were in use in the state.
And what did VW get for its wide-range of money in Texas and the other 49 states? Consumer Reports managed to crack the “cheating” code on two VW diesel-powered models and discovered the performance difference between the compliant vehicles and non-compliant vehicles was basically miniscule.
The magazine tested a 2011 Jetta Sportwagen TDI and a 2015 Jetta TDI sedan in their normal and cheat modes. The two vehicles use two of the three generation of diesel engines in the scandal and they account for the vast majority of engines involved. The 2011 uses the EA188 diesel while the 2015 Jetta uses the latest EA288, which just arrived for model year 2015.
The EA188 engine lost 0.6 seconds on its zero-to-60 miles per hour while in emissions-compliant cheat mode, and fuel mileage dropped from 50 miles per gallon to 46. For the newer EA288, the sprint time was just a tenth of a second, while the fuel economy dipped from 53 to 50 mpg.
While the differences seem to not be a big deal, they still outperformed their EPA fuel economy estimates when compliant. According to FuelEconomy.gov, the highest rated 2011 TDI Sportwagen, the manual-trans model, was rated at 30 mpg city and 42 mpg highway, with a combined rating of 34. The best 2015 Jetta TDI sedan comes in at 31 city, 46 highway, and 36 combined with the manual.
In the meantime, VW is scrambling to develop the new software and hardware necessary to resolve the issue affecting nearly 500,000 diesel-powered VWs that will be part of the pending recall. Most will them will be fixed with simple software upgrades; however, the older models will require new hardware as well, Horn said during his testimony.
Read more of the original article in The Detroit Bureau.
