A German newspaper is claiming that Volkswagen may have to buy back 115,000 cars in the United States following the diesel emissions scandal.
As reported by Reuters, the German publication says VW will either refund the purchase price of over 100,000 diesel cars in the U.S. or instead, offer a new car to customers at a significantly discounted rate.
It isn't yet known why the automaker may be buying back about a fifth of affected models rather than recalling and repairing them like the rest. It does suggest however that modifying some vehicles to comply with emissions testing could be too difficult with VW offering to simply buy these cars back from customers instead. It is suggested that the oldest affected models will be the most difficult to repair.
As of Wednesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said that its discussions with Volkswagen had not yet yielded an adequate response to the scandal. Nevertheless, VW's brand chief Herbert Diess recently revealed his confidence that a solution with the EPA would be reached shortly.
The revelations of VW potentially buying back cars comes after it emerged that the U.S. government could hit the company with fines of up to $90 billion.