Friday, March 18th, will mark six months since the news that Volkswagen deliberately circumvented U.S. That news hit the automotive world like a bombshell, and led to consequences for VW Group that are still unfolding. Executives have resigned, a fact-finding effort by a legal firm will report next month, dozens of government agencies are investigating, and unhappy owners have filed hundreds of lawsuits. VW Group has since taken all diesel vehicles, both new and Certified Used, off sale in the U.S. No new diesel vehicles are now offered by Volkswagen, Audi, or Porsche. DON'T MISS: How Will VW Fix My Diesel Car, And When? 7.3 billion (鈧?.5 billion) for costs related to the effects of the scandal. NOTE: We originally published this article on Monday, September 21, the first business day after the EPA announced that VW had admitted to cheating on its diesel emissions. Here's what we know to date.
We've put it in the form of 10 questions, and then answered them based on information as of the start of business on Monday morning. The initial batch of cars affected were sold by Volkswagen and Audi between 2009 and 2015, and powered by a 2.0-liter turbocharged diesel engine. That earned them the designation "TDI" following the model name. The highest-volume model is the Volkswagen Jetta TDI, but VW also offered TDI versions of the Passat, the Golf, the Jetta SportWagen, and the Beetle. But across those models there are actually two engines in three versions. Finally, a new generation of 2.0-liter diesel engine, known as EA288, is fitted to various VW vehicles (the Golf TDI, for instance) starting with the 2015 model year. While Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche vehicles with larger 3.0-liter V-6 diesel engines were not affected initially, they were subsequently investigated and found to include "defeat device" software as well.
Those include TDI versions of the Audi A6, A7, A8, Q5, and Q7; the Porsche Cayenne Diesel; and the Volkswagen Touareg TDI. In the short term, nothing. Volkswagen is committed to fixing this issue as soon as possible. We want to assure customers and owners of these models that their automobiles are safe to drive, and we are working to develop a remedy that meets emissions standards and satisfies our loyal and valued customers. Owners of these vehicles do not need to take any action at this time. This means that the vehicles in question will all be recalled so VW can attempt to modify them in a way that would make them legal. Until a remedy is devised, tested, approved by the EPA and CARB, and distributed to dealers, however, owners should simply keep driving their cars. The 580,000 owners of 2009-2015 Volkswagen , Audi, and Porsche diesel models face some potentially significant longer-term challenges, however. First, the value of their vehicles as used cars may well fall.
6,855 on top-level Passat models. While used diesels historically were worth more on the used-car market, that may not prove to be the case going forward. Second, if VW is able to develop a fix and get it approved, the performance and fuel efficiency of their cars might fall. That's more likely if the fix is only a software update, which would be far cheaper for Volkswagen. Third, and most worrisome for owners in California and some other states, they may not be able to re-sell or even re-register their vehicles until they are fixed by Volkswagen. That's because the vehicles were apparently "non-compliant," or illegal to sell in the first place as they now stand. Before the vehicle can be re-registered, the strict CARB may require the car to be made legal. As of today, we have no inkling of how long that could take. Some states that follow California emission standards (so-called Partial Zero Emission states) also have rules in place that require all emissions-related recalls to be completed before periodical emission testing.
If the recall is not completed, the vehicle cannot pass the inspection, and the state will decline renewal of the vehicle registration. The emission test cycles that were developed in the early 1970s are far less aggressive than virtually any real-world driving 40 years later. It appears that a combination of the factors above plus extremely gentle acceleration and braking might alert the car that it wasn't on the road but being tested in a lab. Diesel engines are known to generate nitrous oxides (NOx), as do gasoline engines, but in greater quantities due to their higher operating temperatures. Based on discussions with knowledgeable sources, we surmise that once an emissions test was detected, VW got the affected TDI engines to meet the Tier 2, Bin 5 NOx limits by reducing the fuel flow rate. This would reduce performance, but most likely not to the point where the car couldn't complete the emission cycles. Lowering fuel flow would also reduce combustion temperatures and/or the duration of high-temperature operation enough to keep NOx emissions barely within EPA limits. If the car detected that it was no longer in "testing mode" but had returned to "driving mode," it would restore fuel flow to the regular level--which would send NOx emissions soaring. The situation is slightly different with the V-6 diesels. They turned out to contain several undisclosed "auxiliary emission control devices," essentially software routines that temporarily limit the emission controls to preserve the engine under transitory extreme operating conditions. Those are legal, but must be disclosed to the EPA, which they had not been.
