It's not certain what will happen to the cars themselves, although a judge has given a December 19th deadline. VW may end up buying back 20,000 of the 3-liter cars and fixing the emissions of the remaining 60,000.

These vehicles (which include Audi and Porsche models) don't violate American emissions laws quite so egregiously as the 2-liter models. They "only" exceed the limits by up to nine times versus 40 times on the 2-liter machines. However, it's clear that regulators want to account for every instance of emissions abuse, not just the most obvious examples.