REPORT: VW MAY BUY BACK SOME DIESEL CARS WITH CHEAT DEVICES

Other cars would need expensive upfits.

Volkswagen may buy back a portion of the 580,000 diesel vehicles affected by emissions irregularities in the U.S., a German newspaper reports.

The automaker expects it will have to issue refunds for customers of around 115,000 cars or offer them a new car at a heavy discount, according to a report from Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Other cars would require laborious and expensive upfits, which would be harder to perform on older VW models compared to newer ones. The process would also take a long time, considering parts of the exhaust would require reconstruction.

Meanwhile, VW faces massive pressure from the U.S. government, which filed a lawsuit against the automaker earlier this week. “So far, recall discussions with the company have not produced an acceptable way forward,” said Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, in a statement regarding the lawsuit. The civil suit may cost the automaker billions of dollars.

And those costs don’t include individual consumers who have sued VW for declining resale values on their vehicles. Some of the plantiff’s lawyers have urged VW to buy back cars affected by the emissions scandal.

Meanwhile, VW already has a plan in place to fix 8.5 million diesel cars in Europe by the end of 2016. The automaker hasn’t detailed a specific plan and timeline for the U.S. market, however.

Source: Sueddeutsche Zeitung via Automotive News