VW Emissions Rigging

[Erick Estrada]

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.

This isn't overstating though. It's cheating the EPA test. They know they failed their claims so they cheated to continue to sell their cars. It's pretty clear Volkswagen is the official car of the New England Patriots.

[polak]

Robert Lewandowski just scored 5 goals on Wolfsburg in 9 minutes. Wolfsburg sponsor?

VW.

Coincidence? I think not.

[chemgear]

At least somebody with a (smug?) sense of humor about it.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...ro-loving-face

The Sting of VW's Slap Across My Well-Moisturized, Euro-Loving Face

So a couple of things about me: I am a Northeast-dwelling, cappuccino-sipping, Whole-Foods-shopping media professional. I am also a lifelong lover of cars. I have reviewed them professionally, on and off, for 15 years.

Is it any wonder I own a Volkswagen diesel?

I bought my VW and immediately felt a wave of smug satisfaction and superiority wash over me. In the years that followed, I would bask in the glow that I had bought the Smartest Car in America. I would evangelize to any poor fool who would listen about VW TDIs, regaling them with tales of me not going to the gas station, but how it was never a problem to find one if I needed to refill my tank. How the performance was no worse than the great middle of the U.S. car market, thanks to all that sweet, sweet torque—and also that firm-but-not-uncomfortable handling and responsive six-speed automated-manual transmission.

All that smug superiority fell to the ground on Friday, when I learned of VW’s perfidy. My TDI is no longer a car, it's a comeuppance. I placed my faith in the soft, manicured hands of VW, only to have the compay slap me across my well-moisturized, SPF-protected face. I now have a car that has been harming, not helping, the environment.

But I can’t change who I am entirely: I guess I’ll have to trade in my tight-pants European pretension for the more white-bread insufferability of a hybrid.

[Peanut]

Originally Posted by polak

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.

Past the point of no return on every model from 2009-2016? 7 years seems like plenty of time to make the appropriate fix.

[calumniate]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

This isn't overstating though. It's cheating the EPA test. They know they failed their claims so they cheated to continue to sell their cars. It's pretty clear Volkswagen is the official car of the New England Patriots.

Yeah I fully agree with you, and perhaps I haven't made myself clear enough in this thread. This is a huge travesty to me. When BP had their spill it was a major event with sudden environmental impacts. These guys knowingly have allowed the equivalent of an environmental disaster slowly over the course of x number of years, largely in metropolitan areas and it's the health impact damage done that angers me the most.

(sorry pylon you're a great guy!)

[chemgear]

http://business.financialpost.com/ex..._lsa=48f6-6599

Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn, who during nearly a decade at the helm catapulted VW to the top spot in global sales, stepped down after admitting the automaker cheated on U.S. emissions tests.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by chemgear

http://business.financialpost.com/ex..._lsa=48f6-6599

Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn, who during nearly a decade at the helm catapulted VW to the top spot in global sales, stepped down after admitting the automaker cheated on U.S. emissions tests.

So it was a top down decision? Wow.

[combustiblefuel]

Originally Posted by cam_wmh

Toyota was fined $1.2BN for their sticky pedals
Fiat/Chrysler was just fined over $100m for their perpetual recalls/defects

What's VW's potential penalty? Perhaps penalize the pollution with a metric similar to a carbon credit?

My entirely arbitrary number is $300m.

The estimates now are $18 billion. 11 million cars are affected that produce ten to forty times epa requirements.

[Hugh Jahrmes]

Soooo. For those of us who decided not to sell their 2012 TDI, even though they had the weirdest gut feeling it was a good move.. Now what?

My other vehicle is a Ram sport

I feel like the universe is laughing at me

[Simon96Taco]

Originally Posted by Hugh Jahrmes

Soooo. For those of us who decided not to sell their 2012 TDI, even though they had the weirdest gut feeling it was a good move.. Now what?

My other vehicle is a Ram sport

I feel like the universe is laughing at me

I'll give you $500 for it.

[burn_this_city]

Just wait and chances are they'll retrofit a urea injection system on your vehicle at no cost to you.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

The estimates now are $18 billion. 11 million cars are affected that produce ten to forty times epa requirements.

Isn't the $18 billion on just the 480,000 cars in the US. The 11 million cars are world wide that had this cheat device/software. No idea what the penalties are/could be for the remaining 10.5 million cars I think.

[Barnes]

I've read urea injection system a number of times in this thread and had never heard of it before. In my mind, I pictured a milk jug filled with pee and a hose coming out of the cap and I would laugh.

Today I looked it up and found it is pretty much a milk jug filled with pee.

[darklord700]

http://www.calgaryherald.com/busines...738/story.html

The lawsuits come quickly. Just to fend off these lawyers will cost VW a lot of resources. Will they have enough manpower to devote to design and quality control anymore?

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Barnes

I've read urea injection system a number of times in this thread and had never heard of it before. In my mind, I pictured a milk jug filled with pee and a hose coming out of the cap and I would laugh.

Today I looked it up and found it is pretty much a milk jug filled with pee.

Jeez, truck drivers have been just throwing it out the window for years! Think of how much environment they could have saved by running a hose form the cab to the exhaust....

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by darklord700

http://www.calgaryherald.com/busines...738/story.html

The lawsuits come quickly. Just to fend off these lawyers will cost VW a lot of resources. Will they have enough manpower to devote to design and quality control anymore?

Yeah probalby not.
From what I understand their lawyers are also the movers and shakers in both of those departments.

[Fighting Banana Slug]

Originally Posted by darklord700

http://www.calgaryherald.com/busines...738/story.html

The lawsuits come quickly. Just to fend off these lawyers will cost VW a lot of resources. Will they have enough manpower to devote to design and quality control anymore?

It really is the tip of the iceberg. The litigation costs, not to mention the potential damage awards will be astronomical. Not sure we have seen anything like this.

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by Fighting Banana Slug

It really is the tip of the iceberg. The litigation costs, not to mention the potential damage awards will be astronomical. ...

Why? Punitive damages for the violation could be somewhat high, I suppose. But they are (or should be) defined in the legislation on a per occurrence basis. The actual damages are going to be practically impossible to quantify. What are the actual damages?

[Fighting Banana Slug]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

Why? Punitive damages for the violation could be somewhat high, I suppose. But they are (or should be) defined in the legislation on a per occurrence basis. The actual damages are going to be practically impossible to quantify. What are the actual damages?

I was speaking more to the litigation costs. We are talking about potential class action law suits in pretty much every jurisdiction you can think of. Not sure how those would be or could be combined across jurisdictions.

Slightly off topic, but I had the misfortune of dealing with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which is the US legislation prohibiting bribery of foreign officials. It seems that companies spend 100's of millions just in the investigation/litigation of these issues. That doesn't count the actual award against them, if it comes to that.

[darklord700]

The lawyers are the big winners in this case.