California regulators on Wednesday rejected a plan by Volkswagen to fix some 16,000 diesel vehicles involved in the carmaker's costly emissions-cheating scandal. The measures proposed by Volkswagen for recalling its 3-liter diesel cars were "incomplete, substantially deficient and fall far short of meeting the legal requirements," the California Air Resources Board said in a letter to the automaker.
Authorities would "continue the on-going technical discussions" with Volkswagen to "ensure a legally and technically acceptable resolution is reached which fully mitigates the excess emissions," the board said in a statement. Volkswagen called the rejection by regulators a "procedural step" and said it would continue to work closely with federal and state authorities to find a way to resolve the problem. The issue involves some 16,000 3-liter diesel Volkswagens, Audis and Porsches sold in California.
The California proposal is separate from a huge compensation plan presented in US federal court late last month by the German automaker - which involves a record $14.7 billion (13.2 billion-euro) settlement - that pledges to buy back or fix some 480,000 2-liter engine vehicles that tricked pollution tests and payments to each owner up to $10,000. A US court was set to rule on the compensation plan on July 26.