On 10/1/2015 6:26 AM, Robert Green wrote:

The Feds will take care of extracting the cost of the additional pollution
from VW (if any) and can order all sorts of remediation as part of a
negotiated settlement, like they did with BP. We don't know at this point
what potential fixes are available to VW. It's a pretty simple calculation
if restoring the NOx controls equal a 5mpg drop in fuel effiency. It's more
complicated if compliance can only be achieved by a substantial retrofit
(i.e. urea system).

From what I've read, the VW designers had designed in a urea system and
the marketing people said that it was too expensive: "Automotive News
reports that in 2005 VW executives found that, “the only way to make the
engine meet U.S. emission standards was to employ in the engine system
an AdBlue urea solution used on larger diesel models such as the Passat
and Touareg.”

This option would have added cost to the consumer price on the vehicle,
which the company saw as too high, leading to the employment of the
“defeat device.”

I would guess that the ultimate solution is going to be a retrofitted
urea system with lifetime AdBlue refills, plus some other monetary
compensation. The lack of the recurring cost of AdBlue was a selling
point of these TDIs.

Some negotiated settlement on fines will be reached because there's a
big downside in forcing VW into bankruptcy and that would get them off
the hook.
http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/01/vw-bankruptcy-potential-is-very-real/.