(credit: James Workman)

On Tuesday, a federal judge in San Francisco gave preliminary approval to a $15 billion settlement proposed by Volkswagen Group and Justice Department lawyers back in June.

The settlement would provide for a buyback of all of VW Group’s 2.0L diesel vehicles sold in the US with illegal software on them—that’s 475,474 cars—at the price the cars would have fetched before VW Group’s emissions cheating scandal was made public. In addition, lessees would be able to cancel their leases, and both owners and lessees will get an additional $5,100 to $10,000 in compensation.

VW and Audi owners whose cars qualify for the buyback will also have the option to refuse the buyback and have the cars fixed so that they comply with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards. So far, US air regulators have not approved a fix, but on Tuesday the head of the California Resources Board (CARB), which has played a large role in the regulatory fallout from Volkswagen’s cheating scandal, told a German paper that regulators were very close to approving a fix.