WASHINGTON – Volkswagen agreed a $3.5 million settlement with Ohio that claims the German carmaker broke state law by manipulating the computer software on its vehicles to mask carbon dioxide. emissions, the state attorney general said.
In November, the US Supreme Court rejected Volkswagen’s attempt to avoid lawsuits by officials in three states including Ohio.
Volkswagen’s US subsidiary argues that under the Clean Air Act, the landmark US environmental law, only the federal government can pursue emissions requirements. VW note that it has reached an agreement of more than 20 billion dollars with the United States I have to go to school every day and owner.
“This agreement fully addresses Ohio’s legacy claims and puts it at the back of the company as we focus on building a future of sustainable mobility,” VW said today. Friday.
Texas and two counties in Utah and Florida have pending lawsuits.
The settlement was only a fraction of what Ohio had sought before. VW said in earlier court papers that Ohio’s claims could total “$350 million per day, or more than $127 billion annually, over a multi-year period.”
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said the “damage to the environment and consumer confidence requires that we hold Volkswagen accountable, and this settlement does just that.”
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the attorney general’s office will split the 2016 lawsuit.
In 2015, Volkswagen revealed it had used sophisticated software to evade emissions requirements in nearly 11 million vehicles worldwide. It’s also deceiving EPA, started asking questions in 2014.
In addition to equipping vehicles with “knockdown devices” prior to sale, VW also installs software updates after the sale, a practice brought before the Supreme Court and in the Ohio case.
Ohio’s lawsuit alleges that VW software updates allow the vehicle to enter “test mode,” halting normal driving operations and reducing emissions only during testing.
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