Dieselgate: No compo for Aussies

Volkswagen is not planning to offer compensation to its Australian customers caught up in its ‘dieselgate’ diesel emissions scandal.

The company’s stance was confirmed overnight to Australian journalists in Berlin for the international launch of the second-generation Taguan compact SUV by Christian Buhlmann, one of only two officially sanctioned global Volkswagen spokes people for the emissions cheating scandal.

Volkswagen and other brands within the VW Group are facing multi-billion law suits and reparations bills for selling 11 million turbo-diesel vehicles which included ‘defeat device’ coding written into their software.

In Australia about 90,000 Volkswagens, Audis and Skodas are affected and the first recall to recode software of the Amarok utility has begun.

The defeat device coding recognised when EA 189 1.6- and 2.0-litre engines were being emissions tested on a rolling road dyno and retuned them to meet regulations.

The cheat was exposed in real-world testing in the USA by West Virginia university where Volkswagens were found to have nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions up to 40 times the strict US legal limit.

Customers in the USA have already received a $US1000 “initial goodwill gesture”  following the discovery of the ‘defeat device’ in the software coding of Volkswagens powered by EA189 turbo-diesel engines.

Compensation plans similar to the US one, which has already backfired on VW, won't be offered in Europe or Australia, because of less stringent emissions laws in those regions, said Buhlmann.

“In America we have a different situation (to Australia),” he said. “In America we will not be able to roll out the same remedies (as Australia).

“We have emissions laws in America which allow for about one sixth of the emissions that are allowed in the European Union and those countries that have tied their regulations to the European Union, which is also Australia to my knowledge.

“So we will be able to roll out our remedies in those markets very soon, whereas in America there is not even a remedy fixed yet.”

While Buhlmann was emphatic, Volkswagen still faces an open class action in Australia being conducted by law firms Maurice Blackburn and Bannister Law. That action has more recently spread to include VW Group 3.0-litre V6 turbo-diesel engines that also cheated US emissions, dragging Porsche into the mess.

Hearings have only just begun and Maurice Blackburn says it’s seeking “full compensation” for the complainants.

Speaking from Volkswagen’s global headquarters in Wolfsburg, Buhlmann confirmed there had been no independent real-world testing of the new Tiguan’s EA 288 diesel engine and would not be before that process became mandatory in Germany in 2017.

He rejected the proposition that Volkswagen should conduct testing of diesel versions of the Tiguan -- its first all-new model since Dieselgate -- in the real world ahead of the official start date as an exercise in regaining the trust of the car buying public.

The EA 288 is based on the EA 189, although it importantly includes Adblue injection to counter NOx emissions, a crucial feature omitted from the EA 189 for cost reasons.

“In the EA 288 engine there was no defeat device in the first place therefore this (real-world) test doesn’t make sense for the EA 288 cars,” Buhlmann said.

“I wouldn’t know which test would be applicable to prove on the road that there is no defeat device,” he added.

“But I am not saying this (real world) test isn’t going to happen. They have identified in the European Union to install RDE – Real Driving Emisison regualtions – as of next year. So as of then not only the EA 288 but any vehicle manufacturer that is supposed to be licensed in the EU will be tested under real driving emissions conditions.”

Buhlmann said Volkswagen had opened itself up to the German equivalent of the department of Transport, the KBA (Kraftfahrt Bundesamt) to verify the EA288 engine family did not have the same software cheat as the EA 189.

“Volkswagen had to dismantle the engine control unit (ECU) programming to the KBA and we have identified exactly the software that has been used in the past for our EU5 models with EA 189 engines and we have proven that in the EA 288 diesel engines are not affected,” he said.

“The EA 288 engines are used by new cars such as the Tiguan and other new cars as of 2012 and those cars never had the defeat software in the first place.”

Asked why car buyers should trust Volkswagen when it had lied to them for years about ‘clean diesel’, Buhlmann turned the proposition around, arguing most VW employees had been “betrayed” too.

“We have not found out in the company what’s the situation as it turns out to be as it was,” he said. “Me and my colleagues, my 600,000 colleagues, are as well betrayed as the customer has been betrayed.

“I have been promoting diesel for many years and with the knowledge I now have I know that I said things in the past I shouldn’t have done. But that’s the knowledge I didn’t have back then.

“All we can do is make up for what has been done wrong in the past and make better cars …  we have said we will make up for this and that’s what we ask the trust of our customers for.”