As the Diesel Emits: Not All of the 2.0L TDI Vehicles Will Meet Emission Standards, Despite Fix

Volkswagen and U.S. regulators have finally agreed to a plan on the diesel emission scandal and possible dates have been set up for fixing the various the vehicles involved. Despite this, some of the diesel vehicles will not be fully compliant with clean air laws.

According to Bloomberg, the oldest 2.0L TDI engines found in the last-generation Jetta and Golf, and 2009 Beetle will emit more emissions even with a possible fix. According to the California Air Resources Board, the possible fix will cut the emissions down by 80 to 90 percent. But even with the cut, the vehicles could emit as much as 40 times the permitted amount of NOx. This has some environmental advocates angry at the U.S. Government.

“For reasons they didn’t state, they’re allowing fixed vehicles to not be fixed, but to allow vehicles to emit twice as much pollution as they otherwise would allow,” said Daniel Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign.

Part of the reason Volkswagen might not be able to fully fix some of the diesel vehicles comes down to cost. There was talk about adding a urea-tank system on older models, but it was deemed to be too expensive. Instead, Volkswagen and regulators came up with alternate ways of cleaning up the air such as buy backs.

We got our first indication of this back in March when a CARB official said that some of the affected TDI vehicles will only get a partial fix.

At the current moment, a fix for any of the 2.0L TDI vehicles hasn't been approved by the government. Bloomberg says Volkswagen will send a proposal for the so-called third-generation 2.0L TDI vehicles as soon as July 29th and could be approved by October. Here is the remainder of Volkswagen's schedule,

• First-Generation 2.0L TDI: Proposal by November 11th, could be approved in January 2017
• Second-Generation 2.0L TDI: Proposal by December 16th, could be approved by March 2017
  

Source: Bloomberg