Washington DC - Volkswagen is expected to provide US and California regulators with a preliminary attempt at a software fix for the defeat devices it installed in 2012-2014 Passats within the next week.
The US Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday Volkswagen had told regulators it would deliver the software to the agency and the California Air Resources Board in an attempt to “address and correct” the illegal software algorithm that the carmarker has admitted using in its diesel vehicles to evade US emission standards. The fix must win regulatory approval before it can be used.
“The EPA and CARB will immediately begin evaluating the proposed software,” the agency said
Earlier on Thursday, Volkswagen North America CEO Michael Horn told a House of Representatives oversight and investigations panel probing the emissions scandal that the company had sought EPA approval to begin installing software fixes in January in the first of 482 000 vehicles that contain the defeat devices.
Horn said fixing the vehicles will take years and require approval from regulators. He explained that the cars fell into three generations of vehicles. The most recent models, known as Generation 3, number about 70 000 and would be the first to receive a fix.
EPA described the 2012-2014 Passats as Generation 2 vehicles, which Volkswagen said numbered around 90 000. Horn told lawmakers Generation 2 vehicles could begin to receive fixes around the middle of 2016.
The oldest cars, 325 000 vehicles grouped as Generation 1, would require major changes including possible installation of urea tanks that neutralize harmful emissions and particulates, and he could not say when that would begin.
INDIVIDUALS
Horn blamed "individuals" for using software to cheat on diesel emissions as lawmakers attacked federal environmental regulators for failing to catch the fraud for years.
Volkswagen's use of defeat devices, software that evaded US tests for emissions harmful to human health, was not a corporate decision, but something a few employees engineered, he said.
"This was a couple of software engineers who put this in for whatever reason," Horn said about the software code inserted into diesel cars since 2009. Volkswagen used different defeat devices in Europe and the United States, Horn said, as emissions standards are different in the two regions.
"Some people have made the wrong decisions in order to get away with something," Horn said when asked by lawmakers if Volkswagen cheated with defeat devices because it was cheaper than using special injection systems to cut emissions.
Committee member Representative Chris Collins from New York categorically rejected Horn's statement that using defeat devices was not a corporate decision.
"Either your entire organisation is incompetent when it comes to trying to come up with intellectual property, and I don't believe that for a second, or they are complicit at the highest levels in a massive cover-up,” he said.
Volkswagen, even after hearing in 2014 about an independent study that showed emissions irregularities in two of its diesel cars, told US air regulators for about a year that the higher emissions data was the result of technical problems with the tests.
EPA UNDER FIRE
Horn said the company told regulators only on 3 September that it was using defeat devices and that before then he had no understanding of what they were.
Sitting alone before the committee with folded hands and a furrowed brow, he apologised to lawmakers for Volkswagen's using defeat devices, and pledged to cooperate with the committee.
Lawmakers also slammed an Environmental Protection Agency official who testified after Horn for not catching Volkswagen, questioning the size of the EPA's annual budget in light of the fact that the cheating was uncovered by a West Virginia University study that had a budget of less than $70 000 (R930 000).
The EPA's Christopher Grundler, said his transportation and air quality office had an annual budget of roughly $100 million (R1.3 billion).
“I’m not going to blame our budget for the fact that we missed this cheating,” he said. “I do think we do a very good job of setting priorities."
One of the panel responded: "With all due respect, just looking at the situation, I think the American people ought to ask that we fire you and hire West Virginia University to do your job."
VW SUED IN TEXAS, RAIDED IN GERMANY
German prosecutors raided Volkswagen's headquarters and other offices earlier on Thursday, as part of their investigation into whether the company also cheated tests in Europe.
Volkswagen said it was supporting the investigation and had handed over a "comprehensive" range of documents.
An internal inquiry apparently found that employees began to install defeat devices after realising a costly new engine would fail US emissions standards.
Also on Thursday, the state of Texas sued Volkswagen over the marketing of supposedly clean diesel vehicles, alleging the company violated a state law prohibiting deceptive trade practices.
Reuters