Volkswagen Says Eventual Diesel V-6 Fix Won't Hurt Performance

CARS.COM — The Volkswagen Group said today that it thinks it can fix the diesel V-6 engines involved in its ongoing emissions scandal without a drop in performance. Robert Giuffra, an attorney who represents the automaker, told a California judge overseeing the case that VW is "working expeditiously" to resolve excess emissions from its 3.0-liter diesel V-6. The engine is in some 85,000 U.S. sedans, hatchbacks and SUVs from the 2013 to 2016 model years.

Related: VW Diesel Settlement: What Owners, Lessees Need to Know

The news comes two days after Volkswagen, regulators and a plaintiffs group announced a historic settlement that affects more than 550,000 diesel vehicles (including affected four-cylinder models) in the U.S. from the 2009 to 2016 model years. The settlement, which could cost VW up to $14.7 billion, proposes a buyback offer and other options for owners of some 475,000 diesel four-cylinder vehicles from the 2009 to 2015 model years. But it doesn't resolve anything for owners of VW's diesel V-6 cars, which the EPA also has found employ "defeat devices" that thwart emissions tests.

Those cars are the 2013-16 Porsche Cayenne Diesel plus TDI versions of the 2013-16 Volkswagen Touareg, 2013-15 Audi Q7 and 2014-16 Audi A6, A7, A8 and Q5. (The automaker markets its diesel engines as TDI for Volkswagen and Audi but not Porsche. All three brands are under the Volkswagen Group.)

"It's a bigger engine," Giuffra told U.S. Senior District Judge Charles Breyer, the judge overseeing the case, in court today. "There's testing that's going on. The company believes it can fix the 3-liter to the standard with which the cars were originally certified ... [and] it will not be one that will have an adverse effect on performance."

Breyer set Aug. 25 for the next status update regarding the V-6 cars. That's nearly a month after the next milestone in VW's ongoing diesel scandal: July 26, when the court will hold a hearing on the approval of Tuesday's proposed settlement.

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