VW to pay up to $7,000 to diesel owners as part of settlement fees

It has been reported that German car manufacturer Volkswagen (VW) will pay between $1,000 and $7,000 to affected VW owners in addition to paying fees to fix or buy back the cars.

The details of the settlement are still being negotiated for submission to a federal judge, with the payment amount to be determined by the vehicle’s age and other factors.

The group is also set to fund a remediation program aimed at undoing the damage the 482,000 diesel cars caused by emitting up to 40 times the legal amount of nitrogen oxide. It is also expected that VW will be unable of repairing cars to the satisfaction of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and will need to buy back, or make extra payments to the environmental fund.

The EPA and California Air Resources Board (CARB) are yet to approve VW’s proposed fixes and there is currently no guarantee that a fix will be put in place.

The news comes after the Guardian reported that the European commission was warned that VW had been suspected of cheating emissions tests, five years before the scandal emerged. A documents each showed that the commission’s in-house science service had informed the commission in 2010 that tests have uncovered what researchers suspected to be a ‘defeat device’.

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