Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche facing new EPA emissions accusations over 3.0L diesels

Volkswagen’s diesel emissions scandal has officially become Porsche’s problem: the company has halted sales of its diesel Cayenne SUV in light of new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accusations VW’s 3.0L diesel V6 was programmed with software similar to that in the 2.0L diesel four-cylinder. That smaller engine is at the heart of revelations that VW had built a cheat into its popular small diesel in order to fake emissions rule compliance.

While this accusation is less far-reaching than that related to the four-cylinder motors, it still affects a wide range of vehicles that includes the Porsche Cayenne, Audi Q7, and Volkswagen Touareg crossover siblings, as well as Audi’s smaller Q5 crossover, and A6, A7, and A8 sedans.

In a statement, Porsche said it has “decided to voluntarily discontinue sales of model-year 2014 through 2016 Cayenne Diesel vehicles until further notice,” and that the company is “working intensively to resolve this matter as soon as possible.”

In an interview with USA Today, an Audi spokesperson has said that brand “is trying to work with EPA and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to show our emissions results and understand how they came to their conclusion.”

As we write this, Audi had removed the 3.0L TDI diesel option from its vehicle configurators at Audi.ca, but VW.ca would still allow us to build a diesel-powered Touareg.