Bad news for anyone with VW turbos who has been affected by Volkswagen’s attempts to fiddle the facts regarding diesel emissions by fitting nearly half a million cars with devices that fooled regulators into believing that the cars were less polluting.
It has now emerged that the company will not be paying out any compensation to drivers in the UK (some 1.2 million were affected by the rigging). Instead, they have been issued with an apology and a promise to have their vehicles fixed, the Financial Time reports.
In the US, however, a civil lawsuit was filed by the Department of Justice and at least $1,000 in compensation has now been promised to each motorist in the form of a gift card.
UK managing director of VW Paul Willis explained that in order to pay out compensation, there has to be a loss first. Engineers have since informed him that once the cars in question have been repaired, no negative effect would be seen on second-hand car values, driveability or fuel consumption.
“However, we do need to regain the trust of our customers, which is why we are going to fix the vehicles,” he remarked, going on to add that “unfortunately the US is a very different situation”.
This comes as US regulators rejected Volkswagen’s plans to recall the diesel cars that had been fitted with the devices, with the California Air Resources Board saying that the proposals did not address the impact on emissions, safety and vehicle performance adequately or in a timely enough fashion.