Believe it or not, Volkswagen still isn’t done paying for its diesel emissions scandal. Reuters understands that the car maker has agreed to pay over $200 million extra into a US Environmental Protection Agency fund devoted to reducing pollution created by VW’s diesel emissions cheating. The company had already agreed to spend $2.7 billion over three years, but the extra money will cover the 80,000 3-liter diesels that violated emissions limits — previously, it was only accounting for 2-liter vehicles. Barring surprises, the deal could be made official as soon as the 19th.
It’s not certain what will happen to the cars themselves, although a judge has given a December 19th deadline. VW may end up buying back 20,000 of the 3-liter cars and fixing the emissions of the remaining 60,000.
These vehicles (which include Audi and Porsche models) don’t violate American emissions laws quite so egregiously as the 2-liter models. They “only” exceed the limits by up to nine times versus 40 times on the 2-liter machines. However, it’s clear that regulators want to account for every instance of emissions abuse, not just the most obvious examples.
