Volkswagen faces billions in penalties as U.S. sues for environment violations: The U.S. Justice Department on Monday filed a civil lawsuit against Volkswagen AG for allegedly violating the Clean Air Act by installing illegal devices to impair emission control systems in nearly 600,000 vehicles.The allegations against Volkswagen, along with its Audi and Porsche units, carry …
Oct 13, 2015 · • The Volkswagen engineers discussed what they were doing with Volkswagen’s in-house lawyers in a vague way that the lawyers didn’t really understand, and the lawyers did not explicitly object.
Dec 20, 2016 · An additional $603 million will settle consumer protection claims with state attorney generals. Customers now have the choice to “opt out” of the settlement and pursue a private compensation claim against Volkswagen (or …
Dec 26, 2021 · The attorney general lawsuit in November 2016 alleged that Volkswagen had implemented a recall on 11,974 Illinois vehicles in 2014 for the purpose of enhancing the fraudulent emissions-control ...
Greenpeace GermanyA young German climate activist and the heads of Greenpeace Germany have sued Volkswagen (VW) in a German court for “fuelling the climate crisis”, accusing the carmaker of failing to do its part to combat global warming.Nov 9, 2021
The Texas Attorney General alleged that Volkswagen's original installation of defeat device software in its diesel cars, and subsequent, post-sale updates to that software, violated Texas's prohibition against “tampering” with an emission-control device, and sought extensive civil penalties.Dec 31, 2020
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com. WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Volkswagen AG's (VOWG_p.DE) U.S. unit will pay $3.5 million to resolve a lawsuit by the state of Illinois against the German automaker for updates of emissions software arising from the 2015 diesel cheating scandal.Dec 9, 2021
Volkswagen had been reluctant to publicly accuse former top managers of complicity in the emissions fraud, which has cost Volkswagen tens of billions of euros in fines, settlements and legal fees.Mar 26, 2021
Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. (Volkswagen ) is recalling certain 2020 Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport, Jetta, Jetta GLI and Tiguan and Audi Q5 and SQ5 and 2021 Volkswagen Atlas vehicles.
Affected vehicles2.0 liter diesel vehicle models and model years with defeat devices: Jetta (2009 – 2015) Jetta Sportwagen (2009 - 2014) Beetle (2013 – 2015) ... 3.0 liter diesel vehicle models and model years with defeat devices: Volkswagen Touareg (2009 - 2016) Porsche Cayenne (2013 - 2016) Audi A6 Quattro (2014 - 2016)
Volkswagen and Audi recently agreed to pay $42 million as part of an airbag class action settlement resolving allegations the companies' cars use defective Takata airbags that could cause injuries or deaths.Dec 10, 2021
BRUSSELS, July 8 (Reuters) - The European Commission fined German carmakers Volkswagen and BMW a total of 875 million euros ($1 billion) on Thursday for colluding to curb the use of emissions cleaning technology they had developed.Jul 8, 2021
Hanno Jelden, who prosecutors said was in charge of the development of the illegal software at the heart of the scheme, attributed the long silence over the software malfunction in part to Volkswagen's company culture, which he described as one where problems were to be solved quickly rather than analysed.Sep 23, 2021
Hemanth KappannaHemanth Kappanna was on a small team of three grad students who discovered VW's fraud, but now he's back in India looking for work. When the Volkswagen Auto Group was discovered to have falsified its diesel emissions as part of a debacle now known as Dieselgate, dominoes fell throughout the industry.May 9, 2019
Volkswagen Lawsuit. Volkswagen’s admission in September 2015 that it had installed emissions cheating devices on more than 500,000 U.S.-sold diesel vehicles has left scores of affected owners wondering what to do with a car that is not what they paid for and not technically road-legal. VW has scrambled to control the damage done to its brand as ...
A federal court approved a $15 billion settlement over VW's emissions cheating scandal. On October 25, 2016, a federal court approved the terms of a $15 billion settlement that VW hopes will make things right with U.S. TDI owners.
Some of them, yes. Any fix to the excessive NOx emissions will have to be approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) because VW is in violation of the federal Clean Air Act. There are concerns, however, that a fix would diminish the vehicle’s performance, fuel efficiency, and/or reliability.
Class action suits are easy to join. A “class action” suit means that en entire group of people—like Volkswagen car owners—are represented by a single legal action. It keeps costs to a minimum, makes the process efficient, and ensures that you get the same outcome as every other Volkswagen customer.
While this marketing made Volkswagen a household name, it turns out it was built on deception—and that Volkswagen has been cheating emissions standards since at least 2009. If you own an affected Volkswagen vehicle, you need to seek a recovery as soon as possible.
From 2009 through 2015, Volkswagen equipped its cars with software designed to cheat emissions testing. The software could detect when the car was being run in a laboratory setting for emissions purposes, and kept the car’s emissions well under federal requirements during the test.
It also faces possible criminal penalties. Volkswagen has also launched a recall. It’s calling in all affected vehicles in the United States for mandatory repairs and updating. This will involve disabling the cheating software and overhauling the vehicles to correctly regulate emissions.
The EPA, or Environmental Protection Agency, stated that Volkswagen installed a “defeat device” on 482,000 of its four-cylinder diesel automobiles in the United States in order to bypass federal emissions regulations, possibly exposing the public to harmful air pollutants. The defeat devices were designed to make it appear as if these cars passed the standards set forth in the Clean Air Act.
According to the EPA, Volkswagen utilized a “sophisticated” algorithm to trigger the cars' full emissions controls when detecting emissions performance tests. The aforementioned information was discovered by California regulators and the EPA when the International Council on Clean Transportation and West Virginia University questioned the emissions levels of the affected VW automobiles.
For each Clean Air Act violation, Volkswagen can be fined up to $37,500 per recalled automobile. When considering that there are approximately 482,000 affected cars, the total fine may be as high as $18 billion. Individual lawsuits are separate from any federal lawsuit.
The overall opinion is that Volkswagen cannot make the affected automobiles EPA compliant without significantly decreasing the cars' efficiency and horsepower. Even if Volkswagen can comply with the EPA's emissions standards, owners of these cars will suffer real damage and harm since their cars will not perform as advertised when purchased.
The EPA says that owners of the above listed cars can continue to drive them in their current state until further notice. Although Volkswagen has not yet found a solution to the problem, automotive experts believe alterations made to the affected models will negatively impact the cars' performance and cause the cars to use more fuel.
By far the most prominent person indicted so far, Mr. Neusser was one of the select few executives who presented new models at car shows. Before his resignation in 2015, he oversaw 10,000 people at Volkswagen’s vast development complex in Wolfsburg, Germany, which has its own test track. Mr. Neusser was known inside Volkswagen for his loyalty to Martin Winterkorn, Volkswagen’s chief executive until he resigned when the scandal broke.
Neusser was known inside Volkswagen for his loyalty to Martin Winterkorn, Volkswagen’s chief executive until he resigned when the scandal broke. Mr. Neusser took over responsibility for developing new engines for Volkswagen brand cars in 2011, after the illegal software had already been deployed in millions of cars around the world.
Mr. Gottweis was a quality-control executive known as “the fireman” for his troubleshooting skills. When a defect turned up in Volkswagen vehicles somewhere in the world — a common occurrence in the industry — he was often one of the first on the scene.
Mr. Liang is the only person so far to plead guilty in connection with the Volkswagen scandal, and has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. He appears to have had a front-row seat to all that was happening inside the company as the scandal unfolded, making him a particularly valuable informant.
Mr. Dorenkamp, who specialized in emissions systems, was crucial to the development of the new diesel engine for the American market. Like several other suspects, he was well-known in industry circles, speaking at universities and conferences, and writing articles in technical journals. Mr. Dorenkamp ’s name is on numerous patents related to engine technology.