Volkswagen has accepted to offer an extra two-year guarantee to European owners of its diesel vehicles but no compensation in talks with Europe’s consumer affairs chief over its emissions scandal, a European Commission representative stated on Wednesday.
EU authorities have piled pressure on the automaker to compensate European customers after it confessed to U.S. regulators in September 2015 that it had cheated on emissions tests using software set up in about 11 million diesel vehicles sold around the world – most of them in Europe.
Regardless of VW’s admission of wrongdoing in the United States, it states it has not broken the law in Europe and sees no reason to compensate consumers there.
VW’s CEO Matthias Mueller informed the EU’s commissioner for consumer affairs previously last week that the company would now provide European clients a two-year prolonged warranty, the Commission spokesperson stated.
However, discussing the talks with the commissioner, Vera Jourova, Volkswagen did not verify that it had agreed to extend its warranty. The company rather referred back to earlier “confidence-building measures” consisting of a dedication to repair all automobiles affected by this fall, stating that upgrading the software would not diminish the car’s performance.
“Volkswagen has said the whole time that it cares of every customer,” it said in an email on Wednesday.
An extended service warranty deal would be the first concession made by the company in reaction to increasing pressure from Brussels to do more for its diesel clients following months of talks with EU authorities and over a year after the Dieselgate scandal broke.
Jourova and other EU regulators have consistently expressed frustration over VW’s mindset to European customers in not offering the cash payouts given to U.S. owners of its vehicles.
