Diesel car owners in the US may get generous compensation from Volkswagen

Owners of diesel vehicles involved in the US Dieselgate scandal are likely to be offered generous compensation for their vehicles, according to the head of Volkswagen's claims programme, who spoke to a German newspaper.

Kenneth Feinberg, head of the VW claims programme, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, that Volkswagen was still working out the details of the offer, which could be cash, car buybacks, repairs or replacements.

Feinberg, who had headed payment programmes in the General Motors ignition switch scandal, the BE Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Boston Marathon One Fund and 9/11 victims, had been tasked by the automaker with creating and administering its compensation programme in December.

Struggling with problems with the issues it faced, Volkswagen was finding it difficult to put an exact price on the diesel emissions scandal. On Friday, for instance, the German carmaker deferred publication of its 2015 financial results and delayed its shareholder meeting, Reuters said today.

Also, the company was working with US regulators to find an acceptable fix for its TDI diesel engines.

Due to the developments occurring continually, Feinberg's original timetable for the fund – 60 to 90 days had been delayed. ''My hands are tied, as long as VW and the authorities have not overcome their differences," he said, examiner.com reported.

Meanwhile, the state of New Jersey has become the latest addition to the long list of plaintiffs suing Volkswagen over deceptive software, it used to allow its VW, Porsche, and Audi diesel-powered cars to masquerade as low-emission vehicles.

''For the past decade Volkswagen engaged in one of the largest frauds in the history of the automobile industry,'' the state's lawsuit asserts. ''It developed and distributed into the marketplace sophisticated software to evade emissions requirements, it misled regulators about the true environmental impact of its vehicles, and it misled consumers about the products that it was marketing as supposedly good for the environment.''