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VW previews retouched 2014 Touareg for Beijing

Volkswagen is in New York this week showing off its new Jetta and Golf TDI SportWagen concept. But in less than a week, the German automaker will be off to China for the Beijing Motor Show, where it will showcase the revised Touareg you see here.
A subtle update on the Touareg that's been on the market in its current form for four years now, the facelifted model features reworked styling front and rear, an updated interior and a host of new technologies to keep it current in the highly competitive SUV market. Among those new features are larger bi-xenon headlights, coasting function, Google Maps integration and a post-collision braking system designed to prevent a second crash.
VW will offer the new Touareg with a variety of engines around the world, but in North America it'll carry over the same six-cylinder powertrain options as the outgoing model: a 3.6-liter V6 with 280 horsepower, a 3.0-liter turbodiesel V6 with 240 hp (though torque isn't listed, we'd expect around 406 pound-feet, same as last year) and a hybrid that marries a 3.0-liter supercharged V6 to an electric motor that combine to deliver 380 hp.

VW air rule violation allegations 'stunning,' $18B fine unlikely

The big automotive news today was the US federal allegations that VW quietly and illegally installed software on approximately 482,000 diesel vehicles sold in the United States so that they would not return substandard results on government emissions tests. To say the least, this is potentially a very big deal. You can read the details of the government's allegations here. The problem seems to be with the NOx trap. Sam Abuelsamid, a former AutoblogGreen editor who is now a senior research analyst at Navigant Research's Transportation Efficiencies program, told me that there were some hints that VW's diesel emissions strategy had issues a while back. The vehicles affected by today's announcement are all equipped with the 2-liter, 4-cylinder TDI, he said. They all have the lean NOx (nitrogen oxides) trap, whereas all other current modern diesels use urea to treat NOx emissions. "When VW launched those vehicles, I went to the TDI launch program in Santa Monica and asked them if they were going to put the diesel engine into the Tiguan because that would be an ideal application," he said. "They said no, because it would be too heavy. Turns out, the NOx trap was enough to meet the emissions standards in the smaller cars, but not the Tiguan. That seems to be where the problem is, in the NOx trap. All the other big VW and Audi diesels, they use urea, just like BMW and Mercedes do." Abuelsamid added that, in California, to do an emissions test, testers don't stick a probe up the exhaust, as you would suspect. Instead, they just do a visual test to make sure nothing was tampered with and then plug a scanner into the OBD-II port to read the codes. The news today basically says that the cars were programmed to send out false codes, giving readings that testers are looking for instead of what's actually going on. "That's the background, as far as I know at this point," he said. This could be "a black eye on the auto industry." - John O'Dell Speaking at the AltCar Expo in Santa Monica just hours after the news first broke this morning, Edmunds.com's John O'Dell said the Fed's allegations were "stunning." The idea that VW might have gamed the system, he said, "underscores how important EPA clean air numbers are, that a company would allegedly stoop to this to try and meet them. Obviously, people are paying attention to that sort of thing.

VW will expand goodwill package to larger diesels

Volkswagen Group of America will expand its goodwill package to affected owners of the VW Touareg and other models with the 3.0 TDI. The company may also replace the catalytic converter on some cars equipped with the 2.0-liter four-cylinder TDI engine to bring it into compliance with US emissions. VW Group of America boss Michael Horn told Reuters he plans announce the goodwill program's expansion to the 2009-2016 Touareg during the Detroit Auto Show, and company spokesperson Jeannine Ginivan also confirmed this to Autoblog. Audi intends to extend the offer to its affected owners, too. As with the previous goodwill package, participating customers would receive a $500 prepaid Visa card and $500 to use at dealers. The EPA issued a violation notice against the 3.0 TDI in November and later extended it to additional model years. Audi later admitted that the engine, which was also in the Touareg and Porsche Cayenne, had undisclosed emissions management software. However, the automaker limited the goodwill package only to the 2.0-liter powerplant while it investigated the allegations against the larger mill. VW has not announced a recall plan in the US for the 2.0 TDI so far, but VW Group CEO Matthias Muller recently outlined a possible solution that could fix about 430,000 of the 482,000 affected vehicles. "We have one [catalytic converter] in the works and we believe that will be a part of the technical solutions," he told Reuters. Muller plans to discuss the repair while in Washington D.C. on Wednesday to meet with the EPA. "I think we can now offer a package that will come very close to what the EPA is expecting from us," Muller said to Reuters. He also suggested the company might buy back some affected models but didn't confirm the recent rumor claiming that the buy-back may cover as many as 115,000 cars.