Former BMW Group chassis manager Hinrich Woebcken will head Volkswagen in North America, the automaker announced Tuesday. Woebcken will take over April 1.

Woebcken takes over the position from former Skoda chief Winfried Vahland, who was tabbed for the new position last year, but resigned three weeks later.

Volkswagen of America President and CEO Michael Horn will report to Woebcken, according to a statement from the automaker, but it’s unclear what Horn’s duties will be under the new North American chief.

Porsche-Piech family is standing behind their man — which totally isn’t the kiss of death, right?

That, Toyota’s completely nuts and it’s awesome and Mazda’s CX-4 breaks cover … after the break!

* But not the U.S. — at least, not yet.

Add the Mercedes-Benz C-Class Wagon to the list of vehicles available in Canada and not the United States. Mercedes-Benz Canada announced Thursday it would begin selling the long-roof version of the C-Class this year. To add insult to injury, it will be a diesel with all-wheel drive — and that’s it.

Mercedes did not disclose what shades of brown will be available.

The previous-generation C-Class wagon was not available in Canada or the United States.

Porsche’s CEO is confident that the fix for their 3-liter diesel Cayennes will be approved by regulators, which is more than Volkswagen can say at the moment.

That, Kia’s big Detroit show, GM’s plan to sell cars online and Volkswagen CEO has a momentarily lapse of logic … after the break!

The California Air Resources Board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rejected Tuesday Volkswagen’s proposed fix for its illegally polluting 2-liter diesel engines and said the automaker’s plan lacked enough detail and information.

“Volkswagen made a decision to cheat on emissions tests and then tried to cover it up,” said CARB Chair Mary D. Nichols. “They continued and compounded the lie and when they were caught they tried to deny it. The result is thousands of tons of nitrogen oxide that have harmed the health of Californians. They need to make it right. Today’s action is a step in the direction of assuring that will happen.”

According to a letter sent to Volkswagen, the automaker’s plans were “incomplete, substantially deficient, and fall far short of meeting the legal requirements.”

Volkswagen CEO Matthias Müller apologized again to dealers and customers for the ongoing diesel scandal in a statement to CNBC’s Phil LeBeau. When pressed, he also admitted that buybacks are possible.

When you consider the 2017 Mercedes-Benz E-Class will spawn nearly a baker’s dozen variants in its time — coupes, performance models, wagons (please?) — the donor sedan can end up less thrilling than white bread. The remedy for this, like anything else in life, is to put a screen on it.

Fussy child? Screen. Long flight? Screen. Mid-size luxury sedan? You guessed it.

In addition to sporting the much hyped configurable screen setup from this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, the new 2017 Mercedes-Benz E-Class will sport two fewer cylinders (to start) and a longer list of semi-autonomous driving features that won’t be available in the U.S. to start.

The New York Times says U.S. states attorneys general are accusing Volkswagen from withholding critical documents from their investigations into the automaker’s admission that more than 500,000 cars and SUVs in the U.S. were illegally polluting.

The report says that Volkswagen is citing a notoriously strict German law that protects data and documents from investigations overseas, and that their own investigations have stalled — similar to what federal regulators said when they filed a lawsuit against the automaker on Monday seeking billions.

Volkswagen didn’t comment on the report.

Is there a Santa Fe, Alabama? If not, there will be soon.

That, Volkswagen’s Tiguan + electron, who’s gonna buy all these electric cars, and you don’t really need a gas delivery service, people … after the break!

German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported Thursday that Volkswagen was preparing to buy back about one-fifth of its cheating diesel cars in the U.S., according to Reuters.

That would mean about 115,000 cars — likely older models that would need significant work to bring emissions into compliance — could be taken off the road in an historic buyback. According to the report, the cars would be bought back by the automaker for their purchase price or by significantly discounting a new model for those owners.

UPDATE: Volkswagen says the range is 233 miles on the EPA cycle, 373 miles on the New European Driving Cycle.

Volkswagen unleashed its futuristic Microbus concept car in Las Vegas on Tuesday, complete with expressive face, connectedness to the “Internet of Things,” and gesture control everywhere, but only its bare bones are rooted in any real future for the automaker.

The 2016 Microbus, which is “dubbed BUDD-e,” is the latest and perhaps most significant iteration of the Microbus because of its timing. This week, the U.S. Justice Department announced it filed a $40 billion lawsuit against the automaker for cheating emissions tests.

In Las Vegas, Volkswagen showed off its modular electric powertrain architecture underpinning the Microbus that’ll almost certainly make it to production in one, or several cars — just probably not this one.

It certainly sounds like Ford is close to selling a self-driving Fusion real soon.

That, Matthias Müller finally comes to the U.S. to ask “You mad, bro?” Nissan has no love for Takata, and business is hot south of the border … after the break!

(UPDATE: Updates the story throughout, including penalty figures. Volkswagen comment.)

The Justice Department on Monday filed a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against Volkswagen for illegally selling emissions-cheating cars in the U.S. from 2009 until last year and said the automaker withheld information about its 3-liter diesel engine’s “defeat device” after investigators uncovered the scandal.

The lawsuit, filed in eastern Michigan court, seeks more than $40 billion in damages from the automaker.

In announcing the lawsuit, officials from the Environmental Protection Agency signaled that regulators and officials may be at a standstill with Volkswagen regarding how it intends to fix its cars in the U.S.

“So far, recall discussions with the company have not produced an acceptable way forward. These discussions will continue in parallel with the federal court action,” Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance assurance at EPA, said in a statement.

While none of them will look anything like this, Car reports that Mercedes-Benz has a pretty firm plan in place to compete against EV makers and German rivals before the end of the decade.

The magazine reports that Mercedes plans to have a sedan on sale by 2018, followed shortly by a crossover to compete directly against Tesla before the end of the decade. Car also reported that Mercedes will add another crossover and an electric S-Class shortly thereafter.

The first car will reportedly be sized between its C- and E-Class, but it’s price tag sure won’t be.

Speaking to Automotive News, BMW of North American CEO Ludwig Willisch said the company expects that nearly half of their 2016 sales will be of crossovers for 2016 — and it’ll only go up from there.

“In the first nine months (of 2015), across the board, we had too few X1, X3 and X5s,” he said.

For this year, BMW expects that 40 percent of its sales will be crossovers, up from 34 percent last year.

“In a couple of years when we have the X7, it will be even higher,” he added. BMW’s crossover lineup consists of the X1, X3, X4, X5, X6 and soon-to-arrive X2 and X7. Are there any numbers BMW can invent between 1 and 8?

Volkswagen’s emissions cheating program closely follows a set of parameters that are very similar to those defined by the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC), an engineer said this week.

The cheat exists in the ECU’s “main mode,” said Felix Domke, and triggers a normal dosage of urea and other exhaust controls to bring NOx emissions to within acceptable levels.

Domke presented his findings of an unpacked Volkswagen ECU to the 32nd Chaos Communication Congress in Germany.

His findings are mostly in line with what the automaker has already admitted: its 11 million cars worldwide cheated emissions tests by using two different modes for operation, and that its cars could pollute up to 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxides when running normally.

But Domke, who said he owns a Volkswagen Sharan equipped with a 2-liter diesel engine, said his own observations showed a severe change in the ECU’s behavior when it exceeded the bounds of what it considered was an emissions test — more than what’s been reported so far.

Man, people are really pumped about the cool, expensive cars they just bought.

That nugget of wisdom, Russia’s perpetual Cash for Clunkers program, VW’s appeal to Colorado and Washington buyers and GM’s knows what way the wind is blowing now … after the break!

Volkswagen in Canada rolled out the same “goodwill” package for Canadian customers that they did for U.S. customers last month, according to Green Car Reports (via Autoblog).

Diesel buyers north of the border — up to 100,000 of them — will get the same $500 Visa gift card, $500 dealer gift card and three years of roadside assistance that U.S. owners received in November.

Volkswagen diesel owners can register their cars via Volkswagen Canada’s diesel emissions site.

Fifteen leaders of environmental and health groups signed off on a letter sent to environmental regulators Dec. 18 asking officials to fully punish Volkswagen in response to Tesla CEO Elon Musk and others asking authorities to push for electric vehicles instead.

The letter, which was signed by the policy director for the Coalition for Clean Air and the director of the Sierra Club California, among others, calls for “vigorous enforcement of both criminal and civil laws” to deter actions like Volkswagen’s cheating of diesel emissions tests.

The California Air Resources Board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency revealed in September that Volkswagen admitted to fitting nearly 500,000 cars in the U.S. with an illegal “defeat device” designed to cheat emissions tests. In November, the agencies said an additional 85,000 cars with 3-liter diesel engines were cheating too.

BMW’s latest and greatest infotainment system doesn’t need knobs, man. The automaker announced Monday that it would show off its concept for infotainment next month, dubbed “AirTouch.”

The system, which improves upon the one-finger wagging, waving and gesticulating already in its new 7-Series sedan, would use sensors between the dash and rearview mirror to interpret what your five fingers were looking for.

Was that a phone call that you wanted to make? Did you want the BMW to switch to radio? Activate navigation to direct you home? Oh, you were just waving at that guy. Gotcha.

Audi on Monday delayed construction of a new wind tunnel because of the company’s massive diesel scandal, but announced that it would invest nearly $3.3 billion for 2016 — including bringing to market a new Q2, an updated Q5 and a SUV based on the concept shown above in two years.

The automaker’s chief, Rupert Stadler, affirmed the company would release a battery-powered vehicle by 2018, inspired by the e-tron quattro concept revealed at Frankfurt.

No word if the delayed wind tunnel would have allowed Audi to develop real mirrors.

From DNF to DNS, the Nissan GT-R LM project has finally been retired.

That, and it’s lights out for some Crown Vics, the UAW just wants to talk, Hyundai will spend more to lend more, and more … after the break.

Volkswagen’s simple, effective and direct slogan “Das Auto” ist kaput after about a decade of ruining our logic and grammar.

That, and BMW gets spanked by NHTSA, drive like it’s 2008, and more … after the break.

Volkswagen executives may rotate in and out of key positions with the company to increase oversight and possibly reduce the chance for another massive cheating scandal that has engulfed the automaker, Reuters reported (via Welt am Sonntag).

Supervisory board chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch told the German newspaper that the automaker would consider steps such as rotating engineers on a regular basis and developing key components with multiple layers of oversight would help change a corporate culture that pressured workers into cheating emissions standards.

“We need a culture throughout the Group, which not only tolerates different opinions, but permits errors. It is important that mistakes are made only once,” Pötsch told Welt am Sonntag.

The California Air Resources Board told Volkswagen on Friday that it would take three more weeks to review the automaker’s proposed fix for its 2-liter diesel engines after the automaker added “significant” information to its plan, according to a letter sent by regulators.

The letter indicated that Volkswagen had submitted “additional significant information” to the board Dec. 14-16 regarding its proposed fixes for its illegally polluting cars and that the board would take until Jan. 14 to review that additional data. On Nov. 20, Volkswagen submitted its plan to CARB to fix more than 482,000 cars in the U.S., which could have been approved as early as Dec. 22.

It’s unclear from the letter what the additional information from Volkswagen may be. The automaker didn’t immediately comment on the letter.

Volkswagen will suspend production at its small, flagship facility in Dresden that produces the Phaeton for at least a year, Reuters reported ( via Automotive News).

The small, boutique plant will be shuttered to help cut costs for the automaker, which announced it would scale back some projects to help it pay for its massive diesel scandal. According to the report, development of the Phaeton cost roughly $1.1 billion and the sedan hasn’t met sales targets since it was introduced 2002.

Reuters reported that the plant would be shuttered for about a year, beginning in March, and would be retooled to build an all-electric Phaeton by about 2019.

Five new chiefs for research, sales and production will lead Volkswagen, the automaker announced Thursday, including a new engineering chief to replace Ulrich Hackenberg, the longtime boss at the center of the diesel cheating scandal.

The automaker also announced a smaller, more linear organization for its chiefs. Volkswagen cut in half the number of managers who report directly to new CEO Matthias Müller, according to the automaker, which could help end the cutthroat corporate culture that contributed to the pressure to appease former CEO Martin Winterkorn.

“These structural changes speed up the decision-making process, reduce complexity and increase efficiency,” Müller said in a statement.

The European Union’s anti-fraud office is investigating Volkswagen for misusing publicly funded loans to develop illegally cheating software in its cars, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

Volkswagen was provided the low-interest loans by the European Investment Bank to develop engines that were more fuel-efficient and produce less carbon dioxide, according to the report. In September, the automaker admitted that 11 million vehicles worldwide polluted more than advertised and used an illegal “defeat device” to fool emissions tests.

The automaker’s woes compounded Wednesday: A European bank — partly funded by the U.S. — announced it would suspend a $327 million loan to Volkswagen that would have been used to build a $1.2 billion factory in Poland. That factory was slated to build commercial vehicles.

German transportation authorities approved Wednesday Volkswagen’s fix for 8.5 million illegally polluting cars in Europe, according to the automaker.

Fixes for the automaker’s 1.2-, 1.6- and 2-liter diesel engines include software updates and, for Volkswagen’s 1.6-liter models, a mesh air pipe that calms air ahead of its intake mass air sensor.

The fixes are approved for Europe only.

Last month, Volkswagen officials submitted its proposed fix for North American cars to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board. Those fixes have not yet been approved by those agencies.

Auto supply giant Bosch is being investigated for its part in the widespread emissions cheating scandal that has engulfed Volkswagen, Bloomberg reported ( via Automotive News).

Prosecutors in Stuttgart say that they’ve contacted the company, which supplied Volkswagen with engine control modules that helped the cars illegally pass emissions tests, about their role in engineering the illegal devices.

A spokeswoman for Bosch said it would comply with requests from authorities.

Here’s some of the news you may have missed if you were out fighting the holiday crowds and spreading some of that Yuletide cheer by burning the hell out of some cookies you were planning on giving the neighbors.

(Update: With EPA comment and clarification on their tests.)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved for sale Friday the 2016 BMW X5d after new tests of that car revealed that it did not use an illegal “defeat device” to cheat emissions standards, Reuters reported.

Well it didn’t use a defeat device as far as they could see, anyway.

“Our screening tests found no evidence of a defeat device in the 2016 BMW X5,” EPA spokeswoman Laura Allen told Reuters. “No evidence” is hardly a clean bill of health from the environmental agency, but at this point we’ll take what we can get.

Volkswagen announced Thursday that the automaker’s investigation had identified institutional breakdowns and individual misconduct that led to the installation of more than 11 million “defeat devices” aimed at cheating emissions tests in its diesel cars.

Volkswagen Chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch told journalists and investors that some parts of the company “tolerated breaches of rules” while it developed the illegal devices, according to Automotive News.

Thursday’s announcement was an interim report on the internal investigation by Volkswagen that has already resulted in nine suspended employees, including a high-ranking engineer who was with the automaker for 30 years. Pötsch said the external investigation, which will be conducted by U.S. firm Jones Day, will continue well into 2016.

My German begins and ends with “nein” but I don’t need to know much to see what’s going on in this video.

According to the New York Times, sentiment in Germany is starting to build that American regulators are being unfairly harsh with Volkswagen in an effort to bolster domestic manufacturers such as Ford, General Motors and Ram.

The Environmental Protection Agency notified Volkswagen in September that its cars used an illegal “defeat device” to skirt emissions laws. Since then, the automaker has been caught up in an international scandal that has cost the automaker billions and damaged the reputation for Germany’s largest exporter.

According to a report by Bild am Sonntag (via Reuters), Volkswagen’s third largest shareholder, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), wants trade unions to have less influence in what happens at the automaker amid Volkswagen’s ongoing emissions scandal.

QIA, which owns 17 percent of Volkswagen, is said to use a meeting scheduled today with automaker CEO Matthias Müller to “demand a scaling back of the role of the works council,” reported Reuters.

Volkswagen representatives denied the report, stating, “Co-determination (joint decision-making by corporate and labor representatives) and the (role of the) works council were not on the agenda of the talks.”

No one will laugh at you for majoring in cartography anymore. Well, maybe not everyone. — Aaron

Daimler AG, Audi and BMW announced Friday that the trio had completed its purchase of Nokia’s mapmaking business, HERE, which the trio announced they were seeking to purchase in August.

The companies didn’t specify details about the transaction, and said they would announce more about their purchase on Monday. In August, the companies announced they were purchasing the mapmaking business, which provides cloud-based maps and data for more than 200 countries, to further develop “swarm technology” that could allow cars to communicate with each other.

Ulrich Hackenberg, who was Audi’s chief engineer and among the first to be rumored to catch heat for Volkswagen’s diesel scandal, resigned Thursday according to the automaker.

Audi’s new chairman of its supervisory board, Matthias Müller, said Hackenberg was responsible for implementing designs such as the automaker’s current MQB global architecture and cars such as the A3, A4, A6, A8 and TT.

“Above all, the modular toolkit system is inseparably connected with the name of Ulrich Hackenberg. He had that idea already in the early nineties at Audi. Today, the entire Group profits from it,” Müller said in a statement.

Porsche announced Friday that it would build its Mission E car — an all-electric sedan with looks that a Panamera would kill for — and sell the car by 2020. The Mission E concept was announced at Frankfurt earlier this year.

In addition to the car’s 0-60 mph time in under 3.5 seconds, the Mission E (no word on whether that is the final name) will also boast a 310-mile range and an 800-volt charge capability that could recharge the battery up to 80 percent in 15 minutes, providing you can find a charger for it.

Porsche didn’t announce pricing or availability yet, because presumably they’re figuring out exactly how much people will be willing to pay for the Stuttgart coat of arms and how many sales they’ve already lost to Tesla.

General Motors on Thursday denied that its own internal testing revealed the Opel Zafira 1.6-liter diesel flouted European emissions and fuel economy standards, Bloomberg reported ( via Automotive News).

A German news magazine program, Monitor, said officials at Opel knew its midsize crossover polluted up to 15-percent more carbon dioxide than advertised, and that the automaker knew its fuel claims couldn’t be substantiated. The report also said that separate testing at a Swiss facility showed the Zafira exceeded advertised fuel consumption and emissions by 20 percent.

Or, in other words: Another chapter in the “ Everyone Cheated/Just Volkswagen Cheated” saga.

Analysts are estimating that more than 400 lawsuits (for now) pending against Volkswagen for fraudulent “clean diesel” claims could cost the automaker billions in court — if they even go that far.

Bloomberg reported (via Automotive News) that as lawyers for owners and Volkswagen wrangle over where to eventually hold a consolidated trial against the automaker, many analysts believe Volkswagen — who has already admitted to committing fraud — may end up paying at least $1.5 billion to customers, before damages or a potential buy back. That figure could rise to $8.9 billion if Volkswagen has to buy back their cars, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Brandon Barnes.

(Presumably, those billions would be spent outside of a single wrench being turned on one of its illegally polluting cars.)

Deciding that the company’s annual pre-Christmas party wasn’t a great time to be Wetblanket Wildes, the Porsche-Piech clan affirmed that it would be committed to Volkswagen amid its emissions crises (pl.) and said the company that the family-owned company would “master the situation,” according to Reuters.

The Porsche-Piech family, who owns a majority stake in Volkswagen’s parent company, told the automaker’s board and the town of Wolfsburg that the family has no intention of pulling the plug.

“I am firmly convinced that the city of Wolfsburg together with Volkswagen will master the situation and gain further strength,” Wolfgang Porsche said in a statement, according to Reuters. “The Porsche and Piech families stand behind Volkswagen and Wolfsburg as its headquarters.”

Proving that all turbo Porsches aren’t created equal, Porsche announced Tuesday its eye-wateringly expensive 911 Turbo and 911 Turbo S hardtop and droptop versions that make up to 580 horsepower and dropkick the car from 0-60 mph in under 3 seconds.

In the trunk is Porsche’s 3.8-liter flat-six married to twin turbochargers that spin up 540 horsepower in the Turbo and 580 hp in the Turbo S (20 more than the outgoing models). The Turbo produces 523 pound-feet of twist (553 pound-feet on overboost in the Turbo S) on the way up to its 7,000 rpm redline (7,200 in the Turbo S). Porsche didn’t directly specify its gearbox, but it’s a pretty safe bet that the new 911 Turbo will only come with a 7-speed dual-clutch automatic because of course it will.

Both cars for the first time feature a quasi-antilag turbo system that reduces delay from the turbos by interrupting the fuel injection during changes in throttle position, according to the automaker.

Volkswagen will officially recall all of its illegally polluting diesel engines in Germany, German newspaper Die Welt reported Monday (via Reuters), the first step in a wave of recalls to fix 11 million cars worldwide.

Roughly 2.5 million cars in Germany will be recalled — 1.5 million Volkswagens, 500,000 Audi and 500,000 Skoda- and Seat-branded cars — with work beginning in January. Last week, t he German transportation authority approved Volkswagen’s fix for 1.6-liter cars, which included an “air calming” pipe ahead of the intake’s air sensor. The company’s 1.2- and 2-liter cars may only need software fixes.

Officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board will review Volkswagen’s proposal submitted earlier this month for fixing 482,000 cars in the U.S. It’s unclear what those fixes may be. During congressional testimony in October, Volkswagen of America chief Michael Horn said it would be a combination of hardware and software fixes.

Porsche announced Friday that it opened its first classic Porsche center in the Netherlands, the first among nearly 100 centers that will sell, service and make money on maintain old sports cars.

The network will eventually include a center (or centers) within North America, according to the automaker.

Porsche says that nearly 70 percent of all the cars that it has made are still on the road, and that its centers would be staffed with specially trained technicians that can identify and work on any problem. (Plus, Singer can’t make all the money on old Porsches.)

German newspaper Bild Am Sonntag (via Reuters) reported Sunday that engineers within Volkswagen knew more than one year ago that its cars didn’t meet reported fuel consumption and even pulled a model from sale because of the deception.

Volkswagen admitted in October that 800,000 cars sold in Europe didn’t meet advertised fuel economy and that the company would pay more than $2.1 billion for the scandal.

According to Reuters, Volkswagen didn’t comment on the claim that executives knew about the cheating crisis before October, and said that the slow-selling Polo BlueMotion was pulled due to poor sales.

Paul Walker’s father, acting on behalf of the late-actor’s estate, filed a lawsuit against Porsche this week for failing to include safety features, such as stability control, side impact protectors and a fuel-line cutoff that the family said could have saved the actor’s life in a crash, the Associated Press reported.

The 2005 Porsche Carrera GT lacked basic safety features to protect Walker in his fatal crash in November 2013, the wrongful death lawsuit alleges. A similar lawsuit was filed against Porsche by Walker’s widow and daughter in September. Porsche has denied wrongdoing in those lawsuits.

According to the report, Porsche said this month that the car Walker was riding in while Roger Rodas was driving — which spun out of control, hit three trees and burst into flames — had been modified and improperly maintained. Walker was “a knowledgeable and sophisticated user of the 2005 Carrera GT,” the company wrote in response to the lawsuit.

While the rest of the world warms up to our Thanksgiving tradition of football and mountains of potatoes and gravy, we must admit that the world goes on without us some days.

Thankfully, the Internet never forgets. So here’s a roundup of the stories we missed in our Tryptophan-induced naps.

Volkswagen in Germany announced Wednesday its fix for millions of its 1.6- and 2-liter diesel engines in Europe that are illegally spewing nitrogen oxides and have cost the company billions in a massive worldwide scandal.

According to the automaker, a small “flow transformer” would be fitted in front of the air mass sensor in 1.6-liter, EA189 engines. The small transformer will calm air leaving the air filter before reaching the sensor. Volkswagen says the calmer air will allow the sensor to more accurately measure airflow for combustion. The fix would take less than an hour. For 2-liter engines, the proposed fix would be a software update and would take 30 minutes. Both plans have been approved by the German transportation authority.

Both fixes may be headed to cars in the U.S. However, the announced plan was in Germany for engines only on sale in most of Europe. Volkswagen submitted its U.S. plan last week to the Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board, but details of that plan haven’t been released.

Audi announced last week that owners of its A3 TDI model would be offered the same goodwill program available to Volkswagen TDI owners.

The program, which started Nov. 20, offers owners the same $500 prepaid Visa card that can be used anywhere and a $500 dealership gift card that can be used at Audi dealerships. Three years of roadside assistance also will be included in the goodwill program.

According to Audi’s diesel information site, accepting the goodwill package doesn’t preclude owners from suing Audi in the future.

A German environmental group said Tuesday that its testing has revealed Renault’s Espace, when equipped with a 1.6-liter diesel engine, could emit up to 25 times the allowable limit of nitrogen oxides with a warm engine running on roads — or you know, the real world.

According to the New York Times, the Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) didn’t directly accuse Renault of including cheating software in its cars — a la Volkswagen — but said the van polluted significantly less when the engine was cold. The results could show the schism between European testing standards — where tires can be over-inflated, doors taped up, batteries disconnected, seats removed — and real-world conditions.

Renault said in a statement Tuesday that its van complied with regulations and that tests done by researchers at the University of Bern “are not all compliant with European regulations.”

German investigators are looking into whether Volkswagen executives or engineers broke laws by lying about carbon dioxide emissions in 800,000 cars sold in Europe, the New York Times reported.

Authorities near the automaker’s headquarters in Wolfsburg say they are focused on five Volkswagen employees, but wouldn’t identify those employees. Investigators are determining if Volkswagen employees knowingly provided false information to authorities about those cars and their emissions to qualify those cars for lower tax rates. In admitting that it lied about its emissions levels this month, Volkswagen said it would repay governments for back tax revenue lost because of the bogus claims.

This month, Volkswagen admitted it underestimated carbon dioxide output from 800,000 cars sold in Europe and said the scandal could cost the company more than $2.1 billion. According to the New York Times report, Volkswagen’s admission included a promise to repay taxes owed on owners’ cars it sold with bogus carbon dioxide numbers.

Audi, a brand within Volkswagen Group that markets the majority of 3-liter diesel engines sold by the group in the United States, released a statement Monday detailing how it plans to fix vehicles that use a defeat device. The automaker also stated that three separate Auxiliary Emissions Control Devices — not just one — are used in 2009 and later 3-liter diesels used by Audi, Volkswagen (Touareg) and Porsche (Cayenne).

AECDs for those engines will “be revised, documented and submitted for approval,” Audi said in the statement.

Of the three AECDs, the EPA questioned the legality of a temperature conditioning procedure of the exhaust-gas cleaning system.

“One of (the AECDs) is regarded as a defeat device according to applicable US law. Specifically, this is the software for the temperature conditioning of the exhaust-gas cleaning system,” Audi said in a statement.

On Friday, Volkswagen of America detailed its plan to fix nearly 500,000 illegally polluting diesels in the United States to officials with the Environmental Protection Agency, the government body announced in a statement late Friday. The automaker was required to detail the fix no later than Friday.

The EPA, along with the California Air Resources Board, will review the proposal, said the statement. However, the EPA did not detail the proposal to the media or public and did not give a timeframe on when to expect the proposal to be detailed publicly.

The proposal only addresses issues detailed by the EPA in its September 18 Notice of Violation that applies to Volkswagen’s 2-liter diesel engines and not the 3-liter diesels which may also be cheating emissions tests.

During a meeting Thursday between the Environmental Protection Agency, Volkswagen and Audi, officials from the automakers told the regulator an emissions program for 3-liter turbodiesel engines is also used on 2009 through 2016 model year vehicles, the EPA said in a statement today.

An earlier statement from the EPA on November 2 pointed the finger at a limited number of models and model years equipped with the 3-liter diesels, even though other model years of those same vehicles are virtually identical with regards to their emissions systems.

In the latest statement, the EPA is still calling the emissions program a defeat device, though Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche have yet to recant their claim that the emissions program is legal and doesn’t violate emissions laws.

Volkswagen will have to submit Friday its plans to the California Air Resources Board and Environmental Protection Agency to fix hundreds of thousands of illegally polluting cars in the U.S., Reuters reported ( via Automotive News). Although a fix is due today, testing that fix could take months before it would be installed in cars.

The deadline for the automaker comes after it announced it would ask Michael Steiner, head of Porsche development and quality, to oversee Volkswagen’s compliance with officials worldwide to fix up to 11 million cars. In Europe, Volkswagen demonstrated a fix for its 1.6-liter diesel engine that included an air sensor and software update that cost around $10.68, according to German outlet Wirtschaftswoche.

Volkswagen has said that its newer cars would likely only need a software update to be compliant. Older cars that are equipped with EA189 2-liter diesel engines may need more costly fixes.

Officials from Volkswagen will meet with U.S. environmental regulators this week to discuss how it plans to fix nearly 500,000 illegally polluting cars, according to Reuters. Officials from Audi will meet with regulators separately.

According to the report, Friedrich Eichler, VW’s powertrain development chief, will meet with officials from the Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board to discuss proposed fixes for its cars ahead of its Nov. 20 deadline.

This month, a source indicated to TTAC that Volkswagen would start fixing its cars in February, pending approval from the EPA and CARB.

Update: A spokesman for Volkswagen of America said U.S. cars aren’t affected.

Volkswagen announced Friday that more than 400,000 of its cars with “irregularities” in reported carbon dioxide emissions were new cars, which could shed new light on how many more cars the beleaguered automaker would have to pay for.

This month, Volkswagen announced 800,000 cars emitted more carbon dioxide than reported to regulators. Of those cars, Volkswagen announced Friday that 430,000 were 2016 models across many of the automaker’s brands including Volkswagen, Audi, Skoda and Seat. It’s unclear how many older models may be added to the list of cars that emit more carbon dioxide.

How many among Volkswagen’s ranks were involved in the automaker’s ongoing diesel scandal? Works council boss Bernd Osterloh says it’s anyone’s guess.

In a joint interview with VW brand CEO Herbert Diess, Osterloh told Reuters the scandal could involve 10, 50, or 100 people, if not more. He added those involved would still “remain a limited group” out of a global workforce of 600,000.

Former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn announced Wednesday that he would resign his position as chairman of Audi’s supervisory board following revelations two months ago that those cars may have been illegally polluting, which threw the automaker into a tailspin.

Winterkorn stepped down from his role as chairman from Volkswagen in September after the scandal broke and resigned his position at Porsche Automobil Holding SE, VW’s largest shareholder, in October. Winterkorn may have stepped down from his position at Audi because what took him so long?