VW ‘close to agreement with US regulators’ over emissions scandal

A senior Volkswagen executive has apologised to German consumers and said that the German car maker is close to reaching an agreement with US regulators on how it will recall some half a million cars that have illegally exceeded emissions targets for years.

Dr Herbert Diess, Volkswagen’s chief executive of passenger vehicles, told a packed audience at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas the company was “focused on ensuring something like this can never happen again”.

“We disappointed our customers and the American people,” he said, adding the incident “is certainly nothing to be proud of”.

It is the first public appearance by a VW executive in the US since the public hearing in which the company admitted to Congress that, for seven years, it had deliberately falsified the emission readings of 11m vehicles worldwide.

Diess said the company has reached an agreement with European regulators to update software on VW cars across the continent. “Most of them will be fixed in 2016,” he said. Left unsettled is what advice to give half a million American VW owners still running vehicles that produce emissions that are as much as 40 times over the legal limit.

On 4 January, the US government’s Environmental Protection Agency announced it had filed a lawsuit against VW in Michigan’s federal court for polluting the air illegally. The company is now on a goodwill blitz in America, where regulators appear more intent on sanctioning the world’s second-largest automaker.

Its diesel cars had been marketed to consumers as an eco-friendly alternative to traditional fuel, and at one point its owners were entitled to federal tax credits for reducing emissions. But a software hack meant the cars could detect when they were being inspected so they would run at limited capacity. In reality, the cars far exceeded legal emissions levels.

The 77-year-old company has been engulfed in scandal since. It faces investigations from the Environmental Protection Agency and has seen shares drop 50%.

The agency’s Monday filing said: “Nearly 600,000 diesel engine vehicles had illegal defeat devices installed that impair their emission control systems and cause emissions to exceed EPA’s standards, resulting in harmful air pollution.”

The company is still negotiating with US regulators on how to recall affected vehicles. In the meantime, some affected car owners are entitled to a $500 Visa debit card and $500 to spend at a Volkswagen dealer.

Amid all this, the company has to figure out how to entice consumers back into dealerships. So on Tuesday, Diess tried to turn the page by teasing some of the company’s new, more high-tech and eco-friendly vehicles.

Volkswagen was one of many major car manufacturers keen to be seen promoting their new technology at CES.

One of many major car manufacturers keen to be seen promoting their new technology at CES, Diess introduced Volkswagen’s new VW electric minivan concept car.

“Door handles are so 2016,” he said, waving his hand towards the vehicle dubbed the “Budd-et” to open its doors. Emphasising the car’s emissions-free credentials, Diess said it can run for 373 miles (600km) on a single charge and is due to come to market in 2019.

A new fully electric e-Golf Touch is also lined up – a tech-embellished version of the family car that tweet about itself. Its selling point is an “interactive human machine interface” to “make new communication channels between humans and cars possible – and natural”, according to Volkswagen.

The “human machine interface” reads Facebook messages and Tweets aloud, allowing the car’s driver to respond. In addition, the car will have its own online identity, including a Twitter account. VW says that if the car gets held up in traffic and speed falls below 12mph (19kph), it could tweet “Wow, traffic is bad! Sorry guys, I’m going to be late. I’m at a crawl.” Someone could chose to follow updates from your car on Twitter, if for some reason they wanted to do that.

Volkswagen stock has not rallied much since it plunged several months ago, and remains down more than 28% since the scandal broke. So for now they’d much rather you be talking about their new tweeting car.