Volkswagen chief executive Matthias Mueller will meet with the top US environmental regulator next week for the highest-level talks since the German automaker admitted to using software to evade emissions requirements for 580,000 US vehicles.
Mr Mueller will meet with US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Gina McCarthy on January 12th, in Washington, at the request of Volkswagen, EPA spokeswoman Laura Allen said.
Ms McCarthy told reporters at a forum in Washington that EPA has been holding extensive technical discussions with VW, but declined to predict when a fix would be ready.
“We haven’t identified a satisfactory way forward, but those discussions are going to continue,” Ms McCarthy said. “We are really anxious to find a way for that company to get into compliance – and we’re not there yet.”
The meeting will take place about a week after the US justice department filed a civil suit against VW seeking up to $48 billion in damages under the Clean Air Act. VW declined to comment on the impending meeting.
On Tuesday, VW brand chief Herbert Diess said he was “confident we will find an acceptable solution”.
Mr Diess said fixing older VW cars equipped with 2.0-litre diesel engines would be more difficult than bringing recent models into compliance.
Optimistic
Some US regulators and members of congress have said VW may have to buy back older models. Mr Diess didn’t say whether VW was considering that, but was optimistic an agreement with US regulators would be reached soon.
Also on Thursday, a German newspaper reported that VW would have to buy back about 115,000 cars in the US as a result of the emissions scandal. Without citing its sources, Germany's daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung said VW expected it would have to either refund the purchase price of a fifth of the diesel vehicles affected or offer a new car at a significant discount. VW declined to confirm the report.
–(Reuters)
