Volkswagen’s ongoing negotiations with the U.S. Justice Department, the EPA and the state of California regarding its massive diesel scandal are “progressing,” the automaker’s lawyer told a federal judge on Thursday.
Robert Giuffra, a lawyer representing VW, made the proclamation earlier today in federal court in front of U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer. “The discussions are progressing,” he said, according to Automotive News.
VW is scrambling to come to a settlement over its use of cheating devices in nearly 600,000 diesel-powered vehicles sold here in the United States. The embedded software allowed those diesels to pass EPA testing but spewed as much as 40 times the legal level of greenhouse gases during regular driving.
Breyer urged VW to have a solution to the problem by March 24, when the German automaker is scheduled to meet with the EPA about a fix for the affected vehicles. “It seems to me six months is long enough to determine whether or not there is an engineering process that can be utilized by Volkswagen and will be acceptable to the U.S. government,” Breyer said.
VW has already presented one possible fix to regulators, but that idea was shot down.
The Justice Department sued VW over the emissions scandal last month. The automaker could be facing fines totaling as much as $46 billion. The company is also open to lawsuits from disgruntled owners and dealers.
Leave a Reply