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VW-Feature

Last month, VW appear that it had reached an agreement with High german regulators to resolve its NO2 emission issues and would be able to deploy the set up equally a relatively simple update. Solving its issues on this side of the pond, however, has not been so simple, and at present a source close to the company has indicated that VW, the EPA, and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) take yet to agree on a method to resolve the US problem, Reuters reports.

There are two possible explanations for why VW is having trouble in the United states that it isn't facing in Europe. One is that European regulators, despite paying lip service to the thought of NOx pollution command, accept once again failed to require the company to make meaningful improvements. This isn't as far-fetched as information technology might audio — one time nosotros started digging into the VW scandal last autumn, it became credible that pieces of the show had been compiled by various sources over the last few years. It was well known that diesel vehicles in Europe, despite advert clean diesel technology, had more-or-less failed to improve actual emissions.

The graph below shows the widening gap between Europe'due south supposed diesel emission standards and the reality of real-earth testing. Required results are on the left, actual results are on the right.

NOx-levels

Given VW'south prominence, Germany'due south importance inside the EU, and ongoing economic dubiousness in the worldwide economic system, information technology'south possible that regulators chose to give VW an easy out rather than actually holding the visitor'south feet to the burn. Public outcry were this to be discovered, however, would likely be astringent — dwarfing even the reaction to the initial scandal, which has smashed VW's stock price and sent vehicle sales tumbling.

The second possibility is that VW only can't hit Usa emission targets without drastically overhauling its armada, and possibly adding hardware to existing TDI cars that could compromise their design or long-term reliability. Usa standards on NOx emissions are considerably tighter than even the recently-introduced Euro-six emission requirements, equally shown below:

DieselEmissions

Diesel emission standards, US vs. EU.

Under US law, all VW vehicles sold since 2009 were supposed to emit ~0.05g of NOx per km, while European constabulary allowed for most 0.2g per km. Particulate standards were slightly tighter under the EU, but not to a significant caste. When news of the scandal commencement broke, some speculated that VW had already solved its emission problems with 2015 and 2016 vehicles, limiting the telescopic of the trouble. We at present know that wasn't the case; VW had cheated, even on 2015 vehicles, and had planned to continue using its defeat devices in 2016. That's why the company suspended plans to sell diesel automobiles in the U.s. until the entire situation was resolved to the EPA / CARB'south mutual satisfaction.

If these rumors are accurate, VW could face a much college cost-per-vehicle to bring Usa diesels in line with EPA standards — and that'southward before we factor the US Department of Justice's lawsuit against the company. Reports have claimed that VW could face a fine between $48 billion and $90 billion, merely this is a drastic inflation of what might actually exist assessed. No judge would laurels damages that would broke the auto manufacturer, and the amount would never stand up on entreatment, even if 1 did. That said, VW is most certainly facing an extremely expensive think and several billion dollar fine on top of that. The government will almost certainly want to ensure that the penalty is larger than the profits VW reaped from lying to U.s. customers and misrepresenting its products.