In a bid to compensate for some of the potential losses that could be incurred due to a drop in the resale/market value of Volkswagen vehicles driven by the massive emission scandal, the company might dole out money to the affected car owners.
This was testified by Michael Horn, Volkswagen US CEO, before a congressional committee.
The CEO further added that the company would not be refunding customers’ money nor providing loaner cars for owners as he claimed that all these ‘affected’ vehicles are safe to drive despite the fact that they are emitting 40 times more pollutants than approved by EPA standards
During the long grilling session by the congressional committee, Horn also claimed that the company was unaware of the fitting of these ‘cheat devices’. It was done by a small number of employees and the company is in the process of identifying the culprits.
Contradicting this claim in strong language, Chris Collins, a Congressman from NY, said, ‘Either your entire organization is incompetent when it comes to trying to come up with intellectual property and I don’t believe that for a second, or they are complicit at the highest levels in a massive cover-up that continues today’, reported Washington Post.
Moreover, it appears that after the recall and fix that Volkswagen promises to perform on all affected cars, while the original promised fuel efficiency will be restored, there is bound to be a decrease in performance. Michael Horn said that at the cars’ maximum speeds, there could be a 1-2 mph loss in performance. While this small decrease may not affect most of the drivers, he believed it is worth noting.
Although the complete strategy that will be followed for the recall and fix process is yet to be finalized and announced, it is most likely to start off in 2016. Horn also was clear about the fact that the entire process will not finish quickly and will take time, at least a year or two, he said. This time period is reportedly only for the cars in the US, a small percentage of the total number of the affected cars.
