VW Emissions Rigging

[HotHotHeat]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Considering they were worth $350B in 2014 I don't see this striking a death blow to the company.

Who was worth $350B?

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

Who was worth $350B?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group

Total assets $350B Euros.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Toyota had the ordeal with brakes, Ford had the Firestone scandal, GM makes mistakes that kill their customers with seeming regularity....and they all survived. VW will get over this as well. It will cost them at ton of money and brand equity, but they'll survive.

I think the major difference here is those you can chalk up to poor management or incompetence, whereas in this instance, it's straight up fraud and deception. I agree VW isn't going to go under over this, but I think they'll suffer worse than the other automakers did for their issues.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Toyota had the ordeal with brakes, Ford had the Firestone scandal, GM makes mistakes that kill their customers with seeming regularity....and they all survived. VW will get over this as well. It will cost them at ton of money and brand equity, but they'll survive.

You are probably right. But the financial size of this scandal is pretty stunning compared to the others. I think the GM and Toyota scandals were in the 1-2 billion dollar range. VW is already saying 7 billion already for this, and that number seems very likely to grow.

[Fuzz]

I don't think it will harm their image in the long run. People have astoundingly short memories.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

I think the major difference here is those you can chalk up to poor management or incompetence, whereas in this instance, it's straight up fraud and deception. I agree VW isn't going to go under over this, but I think they'll suffer worse than the other automakers did for their issues.

It's definitely somewhat unprecedented, and a shockingly ballsy chance by VW to take. There's no way to chalk this one up to incompetence. Hyundai and Ford have had their own issues with misleading MPGs...but yeah, this is 10x as bad.

The one silver lining here for VW is that this is at least not a safety issue. GM knew that their ignition issue was killing people, and covered it up for years. The Firestone scandal, runaway Toyotas, Takata airbags....those caused deaths too. VW's scandal is more about environmental regulations and general trust....still bad, but without direct deadly consequences.

[Table 5]

BTW, it looks like the larger Diesel engines are also under investigation now.

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...er-v6-diesels/

The V6 is used in the Touareg, Audi A6/A7/A8/Q7, and Porsche Cayenne.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Table 5

It's definitely somewhat unprecedented, and a shockingly ballsy chance by VW to take. There's no way to chalk this one up to incompetence. Hyundai and Ford have had their own issues with misleading MPGs...but yeah, this is 10x as bad.

The one silver lining here for VW is that this is at least not a safety issue. GM knew that their ignition issue was killing people, and covered it up for years. The Firestone scandal, runaway Toyotas, Takata airbags....those caused deaths too. VW's scandal is more about environmental regulations and general trust....still bad, but without direct deadly consequences.

I thought this just ended up being people piling aftermarket floor mats on top of factory floor mats. I did this in a GMC truck I had when I was a teenager and the gas pedal stuck down on that, too. Plus, I think there were a couple of attention seekers that were just driving around with their Toyotas floored and not even attempting to brake or anything. Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought Toyota was absolved of any wrongdoing/neglect.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by Sliver

I thought this just ended up being people piling aftermarket floor mats on top of factory floor mats. I did this in a GMC truck I had when I was a teenager and the gas pedal stuck down on that, too. Plus, I think there were a couple of attention seekers that were just driving around with their Toyotas floored and not even attempting to brake or anything. Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought Toyota was absolved of any wrongdoing/neglect.

Ha. I did the same thing in a GMC truck when I was a teen. Almost drove through the wall of my parents garage.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Sliver

I thought this just ended up being people piling aftermarket floor mats on top of factory floor mats. I did this in a GMC truck I had when I was a teenager and the gas pedal stuck down on that, too. Plus, I think there were a couple of attention seekers that were just driving around with their Toyotas floored and not even attempting to brake or anything. Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought Toyota was absolved of any wrongdoing/neglect.

It was never really fully resolved, and Toyota did move to settle the case (probably to just make it go away). I tend to think Toyota got the shaft a bit on that one...most of the people who buy their appliances are not know to be the swiftest of drivers, so who knows. Either way, a lot of damage was done to their reputation...the general population never really follows up on stories like this, they just tend to remember the accusations.

Audi actually had something similar happen to them in the 80s with unintended acceleration (mostly based on a 60 Minutes episode that had a modified car for effect), and it hurt them really hard financially for over a decade.

[calumniate]

What do you think the environmental footprint would be on 11 million vehicles spewing 30 times the emission target? My guess is quite large.

Article on CBC today stating that they've set aside 9 billion just for recall and repairs:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/volk...call-1.3238329

[mrkajz44]

I thought the department of transportation determined there were two causes for the Toyota issues:

1) After market floor mats (so Toyota changed their pedals to be shorter and avoid getting stuck as often)
2) People were hitting the gas when they thought they were hitting the brake. When the car suddenly takes off, they jammed the gas even more (thinking it was the brake). Family / friends cannot cope with the fact that it was the driver that caused the accident, so they blame someone else.

So both causes were all driver error, yet it's still widely held that it was Toyota's issue with the acceleration system.

Back on the topic of the VWs, I'm not sure this will cause a huge long term impact. I didn't actually hear about it until I saw it on CP, so I'm wondering how widespread this is? No one I've talked to in the past few days have even mentioned it. Maybe this flies under the radar a bit and the stock price bounces back when people are looking to buy low?

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by mrkajz44

Back on the topic of the VWs, I'm not sure this will cause a huge long term impact. I didn't actually hear about it until I saw it on CP, so I'm wondering how widespread this is? No one I've talked to in the past few days have even mentioned it. Maybe this flies under the radar a bit and the stock price bounces back when people are looking to buy low?

Well it was already the first story on the National yesterday. Either way, I think it's just getting started and momentum will build as details come out and consumers start reacting to whatever proposed solution/fines are. There are already rumours that Martin Winterkorn (the CEO of VW) will be replaced.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by calumniate

What do you think the environmental footprint would be on 11 million vehicles spewing 30 times the emission target? My guess is quite large.

All one has to do is go to a city that has little to no emissions regulations to experience such a scenario. It is absolutely horrible I don't know how anyone can even live in such an environment.

[Flamenspiel]

nm

[polak]

Whoever they pin this on is going to have a really bad week.

[calumniate]

Originally Posted by zamler

[/LEFT]
All one has to do is go to a city that has little to no emissions regulations to experience such a scenario. It is absolutely horrible I don't know how anyone can even live in such an environment.

Looks like 1 million extra tons of emissions per year:

http://www.theguardian.com/business/...analysis-shows

Equates to the total annual emissions of the UK, including power generation etc. Yikes

[Locke]

Originally Posted by chemgear

Man, it's pretty ballsy to commit that kind of (systemic?) fraud.

You know, I was reading through some of the available material on this and I have to admit, I'm pretty impressed.

Ballsy? Yes.

Unethical? Certainly.

But at the end of the day, pretty ingenious.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by calumniate

Looks like 1 million extra tons of emissions per year:

http://www.theguardian.com/business/...analysis-shows

Equates to the total annual emissions of the UK, including power generation etc. Yikes

That links to a separate article. So the $18 billion in penalties is JUST for 482,000 cars in the US. They have 11,000,000 vehicles worldwide that used this same device . . . $18 billion is a hell of a lowball number in penalties that they are looking at.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/...nment_b-gdneco

The defiant boss of Volkswagen has refused to resign despite an escalation of the the emissions scandal following the admission by the world’s second largest car marker that 11m vehicles worldwide have been fitted with a defeat device designed to cheat emissions tests.

The number of cars affected dwarfs the 482,000 VWs and Audis recalled by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The figure is also higher than the number of cars VW sells in a year worldwide, reflecting the scale of the crisis.

[Dan02]

yikes stocks down from 163 to 106 already, 10s of billions of dollars up in smoke for investors.

Wonder how much this is going to cost them beyond just the potential 18 billion in fines in the states.

You've got to imagine there's a few lawyers in the states rubbing their hands together in glee hoping to get in on the class actions.