Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/717204
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 21 AUGUST 2016 Motoring III THE California Air Resources Board (CARB) rejected Volk- swagen's proposed technical solution for the larger 3.0-litre V6 TDI models, some 85,000 of which the automaker planned to fix instead of buying back, Reu- ters reports. CARB indicated that Wolfsburg's proposal to fix approximately 16,000 Audi, Por- sche and Volkswagen diesels sold in the state of California was insufficient. The affected models include the Audi A6, A7, A8, Q5, Q7, Porsche Cayenne Diesel and VW Touareg. "VW's and Audi's submissions are incomplete, substantially deficient and fall far short of meeting the legal requirements to return those vehicles to the claimed certified configuration," CARB wrote in a letter ad- dressed to Volkswagen AG and Porsche. CARB also indicated it would not know until Decem- ber of this year whether the proposed fix would work for all models that use the 3.0-litre TDI engine. The announcement by CARB follows a report by an Ital- ian consumer group that tested the Audi Q5 TDI model after it received a software update ap- proved in Europe and found that nitrogen-oxide emissions had increased significantly. CARB's announcement is a setback for the automaker, which had been confident for months that the 3.0-liter TDI models sold by Porsche, Audi and Volkswagen would only require a software update. The 3.0-liter diesel issue had not been part of the settlement negotiations with U.S. regula- tors from the start of 2016; the settlement announced at the end of June only addresses the automaker's plans for 2.0-litre diesel VW models and one Audi model. A source at Volkswagen said that VW will continue talks with U.S. regulators later in July to resolve the issue. The 3.0-litre diesel situation is a separate one from the 2.0- litre diesels, even though the EPA considers them to both have a "defeat device." Volkswagen has described the issue as part of a catalyst warm-up strategy that uses software to inhibit emis- sions systems while the diesel engine is cold. "VW agrees these devices resulted in excess emissions and other instances of noncom- pliance in the affected vehicles," CARB said in a statement in February of this year, three months after publishing the initial Notice of Violation. CARB's announcement this week came as a surprise: VW had earlier indicated it expected the fix for 3.0- litre diesels to be "uncomplicated." But neither CARB, EPA nor Volkswagen are talking about a buyback plan for these 16,000 vehicles registered in California, at least not yet. Winner of hydrogen fuel cell category in magazine honours