Volkswagen to cough up $14 bn for emissions-scam settlement    

Washington:
Volkswagen is set to pay $14.7 billion in the US for the
emissions-rigging scandal, according to details of the agreement
reached between the German car manufacturer and American owners and
authorities. The details of the agreement were leaked on Monday to
several US media, but is provisional and will not be officially
published at least until a court in San Francisco, which is
overseeing the case, will hold a public hearing on Thursday, EFE news
reported.

The leak
took place hours before the involved parties presented their
documents which sealed the agreement between consumers, federal and
California state authorities and VW before the court of San
Francisco.

The New
York Times said in its online edition that of the total figure,
around $10 billion will be reserved for Volkswagen to buy back the
vehicles at the price set before the scandal erupted in late 2015. In
addition, Volkswagen would pay another $2.7 billion to the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in compensation for
environmental damage caused by the vehicles.

A
contribution of $2 billion would be added to this number for
Volkswagen to develop new projects for clean vehicles.

Owners
of nearly 500,000 affected vehicles in the US can decide if they want
Volkswagen to buy their cars back or if they are satisfied with the
solution that the company’s engineers have developed to comply with
the country’s environmental laws.

The
problem of Volkswagen diesel engines rigged to cheat on emissions
test is that they emit much higher levels of carcinogenic nitrogen
oxides than permitted by the US authorities.

To
prevent controls that would have detected illegal emissions,
Volkswagen installed software that detects when the car is being
tested for emissions. The software alters the engine’s performance to
minimise emissions of nitrogen oxides but also significantly reduces
its performance. The technical solution developed by Volkswagen has
to ensure that the engines do not emit under any circumstances
nitrogen oxides above the permitted level. But it almost certainly
will hamper vehicle performance which for many owners may be an
unacceptable compromise. Volkswagen still faces a criminal
investigation by the US Department of Justice, a request from the
Federal Trade Commission and dozens of state investigations.

Source:
IANS