California rejects Volkswagen's recall plan for 3.0-litre diesel cars

[SAN FRANCISCO] California's chief air regulator on Wednesday rejected a proposed recall plan from Volkswagen AG to fix 16,000 3.0-litre diesel Volkswagens, Audis and Porsches in the state equipped with devices designed to cheat emissions tests.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) said the plan to fix the VW and Audi luxury vehicles, which range from model years 2009-2016, was insufficient. "VW's and Audi's submissions are incomplete, substantially deficient, and fall far short of meeting the legal requirements to return these vehicles to the claimed certified configuration," CARB said in its letter.

The regulator said it will not have enough data at least until December to make a determination on whether a 3.0-litre fix would work for all of the diesel vehicles. If no fix is possible, the company may have to buy back the vehicles, which could add billions to the cost of its buy-backs.

The vehicles include the Volkswagen Touareg, Porsche Cayenne and Audi A8.

CARB's announcement came as a surprise because VW lawyer Robert Giuffra last month said the German automaker believed it could fix 85,000 polluting 3.0-litre vehicles nationwide, and said the fix would not be "complicated."

A US Environmental Protection Agency spokesperson said the agency agreed that VW has not presented an approvable proposed recall plan for the 3.0-litre diesel vehicles.

A Volkswagen spokesperson said the company continues to work with EPA and CARB to secure approval of a technical resolution.

Volkswagen last month reached a settlement worth up to US$15.3 billion with regulators and owners over its 2.0-litre diesel vehicles that were also equipped with the devices that covered up the vehicles' true output of air pollution. That included up to US$10.033 billion to buy back as many as 475,000 polluting 2.0-litre vehicles.

REUTERS