Last month, Volkswagen announced that they will pay up to RM60 billion to settle claims stemming from its dieselgate scandal in the U.S., that affects 499,000 2.0L TDL vehicles produced for sale in the country.
Based on the agreement for the 2.0L TDI settlement program, Volkswagen is willing to buy back or terminate the leases of eligible vehicles, or provide free emissions modifications, and also make cash payments to affected current and certain former owners and lessees.
Since the news broke out, Volkswagen has come under increasing pressure as European customers demand for similar compensation.
Europe’s Industry Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska called on Volkswagen to also compensate European owners of its diesel-powered cars, saying it would be unfair for them to be treated differently from U.S. customers just because of a different legal system.
Volkswagen CEO Matthias Mueller has reiterated that the company has no plans to give compensation to European owners of cars affected by the ‘Dieselgate’ scandal, as U.S. owners will be.
“We have a different situation here (in Europe),” Matthias Mueller told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
“In the U.S. the (emission) limits are stricter, which makes the fix more complicated. And taking part in the buyback is voluntary (for customers), which is not the case in Germany, for example,” he said.
Because the U.S. authorities want as many cars to be bought back as possible, Volkswagen also has to offer customers incentives, meaning the situation is not comparable, he added.
Mueller also said that while Volkswagen was on a solid financial footing, replicating the U.S. deal in Europe would be tough for them to cope with financially.
“You don’t have to be a mathematician to realize that compensation at arbitrarily high levels would overwhelm Volkswagen,” he said.
Volkswagen will likely have to pay out even more money in the U.S. when criminal prosecutions and civil suits against the company are brought.
