VW Emissions Rigging

[Kjesse]

They are in huge short term trouble. Their stock was hovering close to 170 for months, now down to 105ish.... and their market cap is about 50 billion. This is a huge problem for them.

Not to mention the active deceit of governments and their own customers... just wow.

They will need financial help from their parent company to get out of this, otherwise they're done.

[Dan02]

They set aside 6.5 billion in their guidance but that seems incredibly optimistic between fines(potentially 18 billion in the US alone), recall/repairs and inevitable lawsuits from consumers.

How high could the costs go? 100 billion?

[peter12]

Well, this is pretty typical for late capitalism. The market is full of products that are virtually identical. Marketing itself is now based on microanalytics, basically a race to see how many times a company can get you to see their products while you are surfing the Internet. And rampant lies about product quality.

Buyer beware.

[TimSJ]

Wonder if there is a possibility if the stock gets low enough that Marchionne at FCA who has been trying to take a run at taking over GM without much success will shift its focus to VWAG

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by Delgar

They are in huge short term trouble. Their stock was hovering close to 170 for months, now down to 105ish.... and their market cap is about 50 billion. This is a huge problem for them.

Not to mention the active deceit of governments and their own customers... just wow.

They will need financial help from their parent company to get out of this, otherwise they're done.

I guess you could assume that the $18 billion penalty on just the 500,000 cars is the absolute maximum and they get the "good behavior" discount to maybe half, a quarter (or a tenth) of that sum? Who knows.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Dan02

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.

The lawyers and possibly the U.S. and other governments will be the only winners. Consumers will no doubt get shafted and not be properly compensated, VW will lose billions in cash and a massive hit to their reputation. Gigantic cluster **** who ever weighed the risk/reward of doing this is a total moron.

[Fuzz]

Wonder if the will affect VW's plan to buy the Red Bull F1 team....Their pockets might be empty!

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

I for one am shocked by this. Shocked that something electronic lasted this long in a Volkswagen without failing.

[polak]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Wonder if the will affect VW's plan to buy the Red Bull F1 team....Their pockets might be empty!

1 year and they'll earn that all back.

[Erick Estrada]

This would have had to be known fairly high up the hierarchy in VAG. I am stunned that this was signed off by anyone in authority as this is like a recall or cover up but blatant circumvention. I realize ethics are not always followed in big business but I just can't believe such a big player would take such a massive risk like this.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Locke

But at the end of the day, pretty ingenious.

Not really. What they did isn't rocket science as you have to put the cars in test mode when spinning the front wheels while the rear wheels are fixed on the dyno to prevent traction control intervening. All they did was switch to a different ecu algorithm when placed in test mode. There's nothing here that any manufacturer couldn't do or even an aftermarket tuner.

IMO it's incredibly stupid as you have to weigh the risks and there was always bound to be a circumstance where the emissions were tested by someone by other means than the EPA as it was uncovered by an outside test;

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...0RL2EI20150921

Honestly I like VW cars but they deserve to be severely punished because it should not be acceptable for any large company to blatantly circumvent any safety or environmental laws.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

This would have had to be known fairly high up the hierarchy in VAG. I am stunned that this was signed off by anyone in authority as this is like a recall or cover up but blatant circumvention. I realize ethics are not always followed in big business but I just can't believe such a big player would take such a massive risk like this.

I'd be more surprised if they were the only company doing it

[The Fonz]

Hopefully this means they pull that commercial with the male and female engineers singing "Ya! Ya! Ya!".

[HotHotHeat]

Originally Posted by peter12

Well, this is pretty typical for late capitalism. The market is full of products that are virtually identical. Marketing itself is now based on microanalytics, basically a race to see how many times a company can get you to see their products while you are surfing the Internet. And rampant lies about product quality.

Buyer beware.

What other companies have been caught systematically lying like this?

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by btimbit

I'd be more surprised if they were the only company doing it

I would be stunned if another manufacturer was. Stunned. It's one thing to do a Hyundai and claim your cars emissions are better than they are in reality but it's another to circumvent testing like this. I don't think people realize how incredibly stupid this was.

We know BMW is not likely as an X5 was tested next to the first VW found to fail and it passed and rumours are the Detroit big 3 were the ones that tipped off the EPA so highly doubtful they would do that if they were doing the same thing. IMO VAG is probably on their own island here as I don't see other automakers being this bold. The risk is simply too high as it could put smaller companies like Mazda out of business.

[calumniate]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I would be stunned if another manufacturer was. Stunned. It's one thing to do a Hyundai and claim your cars emissions are better than they are in reality but it's another to circumvent testing like this. I don't think people realize how incredibly stupid this was.

We know BMW is not likely as an X5 was tested next to the first VW found to fail and it passed and rumours are the Detroit big 3 were the ones that tipped off the EPA so highly doubtful they would do that if they were doing the same thing. IMO VAG is probably on their own island here as I don't see other automakers being this bold. The risk is simply too high as it could put smaller companies like Mazda out of business.

There's always a certain amount of overstating, like Duracell last 50% longer than Energizer.. dish soap 2 times stronger.. fine and it's mostly just marketing. But I'd be surprised to find another industry, not just automotive that failed their claim by 20 to 40 times what was stated.

[polak]

I actually doubt that it was known high up the chain. I wonder if it was just one engineering team for that specific engine that realized they made an absolutely massive oversight and realized that they weren't going to meet the emissions standards so they created this quick fix. That seems much more plausible to me than an entire chain of command agreeing to this.

If you realized your team dropped the ball that badly when you were already probably way past the point of no return, you either cheat or probably end up losing your job as well as getting everyone else on your team fired as well. Might even be black balled.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by calumniate

There's always a certain amount of overstating, like Duracell last 50% longer than Energizer.. dish soap 2 times stronger.. fine and it's mostly just marketing. But I'd be surprised to find another industry, not just automotive that failed their claim by 20 to 40 times what was stated.

Nevermind the magnitude of the difference though, we're talking a legally mandated regulation/threshold of pollution. And the (systemic? organized? who knows?) attempt at deceiving regulators of those laws.

[bigtmac19]

Windsor Lawyer Harvey Strosberg has already filed a class action suit. He is usually first off the line in a case such as this.

http://blogs.windsorstar.com/news/wi...n-class-action

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by chemgear

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.

Really depends on if they are cheating tests there if they are going to be more liable. Some countries may not have the same standards the US/Canada have (no idea if they do or not).