The German newspaper, Die Welt, reports that VW is offering a settlement of $5,000 to each US owner of one of its “flawed” diesel models.
The deadline for VW to come up with a voluntary settlement is tomorrow, otherwise they go to trial, so while this story is unconfirmed, it does seem to have some logic behind it.
Any settlement that VW offers by tomorrow’s deadline has to receive court approval, or they have to go to trial–which I suspect they want to avoid
I think I heard on the radio news just an hour or so ago the US gov’t and VW had reached a deal.
The article does say that the $5000 payment is the result of an US Government/VW negotiation. I imagine VW would want to know if DoT or DoJ would agree to it before presenting it to the judge.
I wonder if $5000 is enough to bring the TDIs into compliance? If not, will the owners be allowed to continue driving them?
I think it’s cash to the owners, free and clear. Wouldn’t seem to address the EPA fines, unless the government is saying ‘ok no problem’. That seems unlikely.
I heard it on the radio but they were also saying the cars will still not pass CA emissions, so you will have to sell it to a state that does not have emissions.
The article in the BBC says VW will come up with a buy back program also. To be announced Thursday.
I don’t think $5000 is enough. If the owners keep their cars they will have trouble with future service, since VW diesels are now off the market and dealers may not be able to fix them in the future. The cars will have much reduced resale value since there is really no proper “fix”, as the EPA has stated.
Owners will however be able to keep driving them without the EPA hounding them for non compliance.
The announcement deals with the disposition of the TDI vehicles only. VW will either fix them or buy them back. No money discussions yet, such as how much VW would pay for the TDIs or additional compensation.
Docnick: I was also thinking it’s a flat $5,000 for diminution of value.
The more I hear, the less I know. It sounds like LOTS of details have yet to be worked out.
Before this morning, all we knew was that there were rumors.
I heard a VW owner interviewed on the radio today saying if VW offers to buy her car back, they must pay her the full amount she paid them, the new car price. VW will probably say “Hey, we’ll buy it back if you want, but we aren’t paying you new price for a used car.”
As of now, the repurchase price has not been determined, but if it’s average retail as a used car, the owners will likely scream blue murder. Since most of these cars are relatively new, VW would be well advised to offer either an exchange with a gas powered unit or the full retail price. Lease customers will be offered just that, but it won’t be a diesel. The other offer has been to “fix” the problem but at this stage there is no feasible fix that would not affect driveability and meet the EPA regs. The Federal government is prepared to not penalize owners who keep driving their vehicles.
With some 600,000 unit in the US and Canada affected, and an average price of, say $25,000 this will cost a tidy $15 billion. Add to that the EPA fines for willful sabotage of the tests, and there is a few billion more.
As Mitsubishi is learning once more, cheating is more expensive in the long run that being honest.
^
Very well-stated, Doc!
In a different forum one of the TDI owners claims that ‘they all cheat, if the EPA real-world tested the gas powered cars they’d find the same thing’. I finally found just that test, and guess what? The gasoline cars met their stringent specs, the diesels failed their much higher specs:
google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjop73d7KLMAhVEn4MKHdioB5sQFghJMAc&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crcao.com%2Fworkshops%2F24th_RWE_Workshop%2F24RWE%2520crcconfhighlights.pdf&usg=AFQjCNEoCxCtmITkbdepTGQlOJpnSrPTYA&sig2=GDzHRvrJN2dhSOAfcve_-Q
Fair market value will likely be low because of the rightfully negative press. Coupled with the approximately $5000 good will bribe payment, they could buy a similar new car if theirs is only.a year or two old. Still, many will be dissatisfied with anything.
The Federal government is prepared to not penalize owners who keep driving their vehicles.
Does the punishment fall on the rest of us who breath the air?
The Federal government is prepared to not penalize owners who keep driving their vehicles.Why, how enlightened of them to allow us to exercise our private property rights! ;-) Gee, I remember a day in which our "inalienable rights" were bestowed upon us by an authority superior to the EPA...
I can see various outcomes here. If VW offers to pay close to what the owners paid for their cars, there will be a lot of takers. VW will have a ready market for these cars in other countries with more liberal emissions. All of Africa and much of Latin America come to mind.
Some owners will just hang on to their cars because they like them. Other may go for a “fix” which in my opinion will be a half hearted effort since a really good fix will take a long time to engineer.
I don’t like the idea of the government letting the dirty diesels remain on the road and producing pollution. The recent air quality testing showed that still a lot needs to be done for most of to breath air that would not slowly kill us. If we have made a commitment to fix this, then everybody should play by the rules.