Volkswagen agreed Thursday to buy back hundreds of thousands of vehicles affected by software that allowed its clean diesel vehicles to skirt emissions laws in the United States.
Thomas Young, one of the lawyers representing plaintiffs in the federal court case against Volkswagen, announced that the automaker had agreed to buy back the affected vehicles while also compensating owners.
“The deal will allow the German manufacturer to bring some certainty back to its operations, while also providing relief to disgruntled drivers,” Young said.
The agreement in principle was reached with the Justice Department, Environmental Protection Agency, California Air Resources Board and the Federal Trade Commission, VW said Thursday afternoon.
Investigations by the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division and various state attorneys general will not stop and are not prejudiced by the agreement, VW said. Justice Department officials did not return request for comment on the deal.
The company is accused of installing software on thousands of “clean diesel” vehicles that could tell when emissions tests were being held. The software would then switch to a normal mode when the cars were on the road, allowing them to spew about 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen into the atmosphere.
Volkswagen equipped its 2.0-liter and 3.0-liter, clean diesel vehicles with the rigged software. About 585,000 vehicles in the U.S. have the “defeat device” software.
The details of the agreement were not released and will come out in consent decrees in the coming weeks from the Justice Department and the FTC, according to VW.
Nitrogen pollution can cause smog and release fine particulate matter into the air. Those pollutants are linked to asthma and other respiratory illnesses that can cause premature death. Children, the elderly and people with pre-existing conditions see increased risk for harm when they are exposed to the pollutants, the Environmental Protection Agency says.
A recall of the vehicles has not been announced in the U.S.
