Though the EPA hasn’t formally issued its own denial of Volkswagen’s proposed fix plan, the fact that agency officials have said that they concur with CARB’s decision doesn’t bode well for the automaker.

The state agency notified VW early Tuesday that the company’s fix plans for 2.0-liter passenger cars built between 2009 and 2015 were unacceptable because they lacked detail and inadequately addressed concerns about vehicle performance, emissions and safety.

The Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board (CARB) negated VW’s recall blueprint for two-liter diesel cars, with CARB even flagging the automaker for 13 violations, as reported by USA Today. “Volkswagen will continue to fully cooperate” with regulators, the company said in a statement.

After Volkswagen produced a solution for the half-a-million or so overpolluting diesels on American roads, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) told the automaker to go back to the drawing board.

Almost four months after the emissions scandal broke, there is no timetable for winning approval of a fix – or for starting to repair vehicles or lifting the government’s ban on the sale of 2016 VW diesel models.

Regulators in the United States have rejected Volkswagen’s plan for recalling and fixing diesel vehicles that were programmed to cheat emissions tests.

The EPA, in an e-mail, said: “We will continue to work toward a solution”. Mueller said the source of the dispute is variations between German and US laws governing corporate documents.

To simply put it, the German carmaker was unable to say whether the fix will have an effect on the driving dynamics and the mileage of the auto and this the reason why the fix war rejected.

A response from Volkswagen stated: “Today’s announcement addresses the initial recall plans Volkswagen submitted to CARB in December”.

VW global CEO Matthias Mueller met Wednesday with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy in Washington. This rejection only applies to 2.0-litre diesels, not the 3.0-litre ones. The CARB rejected Volkswagen’s plan this week, calling it incomplete and vague.

VW said that Mueller was aware that his choice of words caused irritation and said he wanted the US public to know that his apology for the company’s breach of trust was sincere and honest. Mueller’s plea for one to three more years to straighten out Volkswagen’s apparent technical difficulties may be, at best, idealistic in the current market.