VW Faces $17B Fine for Emissions Scam

very little since the carcinogen in diesel exhaust is the particulates, which is less than what is coming out of a gasoline engine on a DPF equipped diesel, and not NOx

 

Interesting but no doubt they would not have found evidence of an increase in death of rats from lightning or meteor strikes either . What relevance does any of this have to the potential long term health impact on humans?

I may be wrong but my understanding is that the primary concern with NOx is related to respiratory problems, not cancer.

 

So, it's all smoke, no fire!
Diesel fumes ‘biggest health catastrophe since Black Death’ as London exceeds yearly air pollution levels – in eight days | Home News | News | The Independent

 

One unexpected consequence is to ask:

• What incentive is there for ultra low pollution vehicles?

The VW cheat blew-off the standards that they just barely met. In contrast, the Prius is more five times lower, a lot of head-room. But the Prius could be tuned to 'just meet' the current emissions standards, NOx, and still be legal. Since CARB has all but tossed the Prius into the dust-bin because of their infatuation with the fool-cells, why should the Prius continue to be ULEV.

The Prius could be tuned for a leaner, more NOx, emissions and pay no penalty in the CARB states.

Bob Wilson

 

It appears it's not just the VW Group;

Renault shares plunge on factory raids by police - BBC News

Though Renault/Nissan say they're in the clear.

 

I read the link. It was mighty short and to the point. As as far as I can tell, the point is a quick test did not find anything...so there is nothing to find is implied. Hmm. It is unusual to issue a negative result and nothing more, so who exactly funds this. This is what I found:

The US Department of Energy, US Environmental Protection Agency, US Federal Highway Administration, California Air Resources Board, Engine Manufacturers Association, American Petroleum Institute, Coordinating Research Council, and manufacturers of emission control equipment

That is a very strange list of incompatible organizations. One thing there is no doubt about. This was funded and published for the specific purpose of "finding nothing".

 

The ACES Phase 3 report actually does address the non-cancer long-term health impacts of diesel emissions. The full report is available at http://pubs.healtheffects.org/getfile.php?u=1039. The test subjects were exposed to high concentrations of NO2 in the test chambers (up to 42 times the U.S. NO2 NAAQS (air quality standards)).

The ACES Phase 3 cancer conclusions were cited as a response to the "diesel as dangerous as asbestos" article linked in post #1058. Asbestos is a health issue due to the IARC classification as a Group 1 carcinogen ("known carcinogen"). This article and many before it lump the Euro 5b and Euro 6 diesel vehicles in with all previous-technology diesels, implying that the new-technology diesels are just as "deadly" as the older diesels.

So you think the report was intentionally falsified, even though EPA was a funding participant in the study? The same EPA that's suing VW in court for the excess NOx emissions from the TDI vehicles?

 

No. The report had a specific goal even before it was undertaken. I have learned the hard way that whoever pays the bills will always have results that are compatible with the bill payers. With that in mind, I was surprised that the report came to a "digital" conclusion for an "analog" issue.

I was also surprised rats were used. They have such a short lifetime (2-3 years) compared to humans, that creating cancer in mice or rats requires absolutely intense concentrations of pollution to see results. What they were looking for was also limited. All in all, I can say the results probably met the minimum standards of peer review research. I can also so that the minimum standards of peer review research are sometimes not done for curiosity purposes, but economic purposes.

 

That's not my experience. I participated in many private-public collaborative research projects that don't have a pre-determined outcome in mind.

I don't have enough experience in health studies to make an informed comment on the use of rats in the study, but I do know that rat inhalation studies are typically used to determine IDLH values in emergency exposure situations.

 

Diesels have a long history in underground mining where workers are exposed to diesel fumes: Controlling Exposure to Diesel Emissions in Underground Mines - Aleksandar D. Bugarski, Samuel J. Janisko, Emanuele G. Cauda, James D. Noll, Steven E. Mischler - Google Books

The past problems have resulted in improvements, it is not nice to kill your workers. But it has been with risks that had to be addressed long before 'clean' diesel was picked up by cheat-VW. Diesels are also used because gasoline vehicles emit CO as well as the explosion and handling hazard of gasoline. Diesels in mines are a place where the toxic effects on humans can be directly observed . . . if the ingested coal or mineral dusts can be factored out.

Let me suggest there are science and medical sources of NOx exposure including NIH, EPA, and CDC. Cite these sources and we're on the way to understanding the problem.

Regardless, I remember descending into the Denver bowl:

Colorado, road-side testing also revealed the cheat-diesels. Now if we can just factor out the effects of other sources.

Bob Wilson

 

I'm just suggesting that there are significant differences between current diesel technology and old diesel technology, and conflating the two technology eras is misleading. The VW TDI issue shouldn't be extrapolated to all modern diesels either (the BMW X5 35d did well in the ICCT/WVU study that triggered the EPA investigation of VW TDIs in the first place).

 

At the top level, we agree:

Had VW not turned off the emissions code, they would have probably sold similar numbers of cheat-diesels because the Monroney sticker MPG numbers were not that bad. Sure the Fuelly.com numbers would not be that much better but that is just how it is. Back to what we agree about.

Last November, I noticed an older Jetta in traffic and knew it was a diesel because the soot bumper and tag. Today's TDIs are substantially improved in managing visible emissions. NOx is hard to see but not the effects.

More than a few, primarily in Europe, noticed their City air quality numbers were not tracking to the improved diesel fleet. In fact, the initial 'we have a problem' came from University of Leeds that developed the road-side, no-stop, emissions testing systems. They could see there was a problem.

Bob Wilson

 

I'm certainly not trying to bash the study or imply any negativity towards any poster. I am saying there is a most definite purpose for publishing a study supporting the reason the funding groups exist. Would any study funding by the American Petroleum Institute show adverse issues with burning petroleum?

The folks doing the study quite probably do not have a pre-determined outcome in mind. I know the American Petroleum Institute absolutely has a pre-determined outcome in mind. That is the only reason they exist.

 

You are right about NOx and respiratory problems. The post you quoted was in response to one claiming that diesel exhaust is as bad or worse than abestos in causing cancer. The particulates from combustion engines are a carcinogen, but VW wasn't cheating their particulate emissions, and their DPF equipped cheater cars emit less of those than gasoline cars.

VW did wrong. NOx is bad. There is no need to bring up the tangent of particulates and cancer into this thread, which aren't an issue with diesel cars since the early 2000's.

Funny, I would have thought, typhoid, cholera, and flu would have been the biggest for London. Guess we can't let facts get in the way of a good headline or slogan for your cause.

The Prius came out of Japan's LEV(low emission vehicle) program, and the home market was always its target one. The Insight took the more emission route, and got a higher mpg rating than the Prius, but Honda still considered emissions enough to get it an ULEV rating for the time. If the Japanese used more diesel cars, we might have better emission controls on them now.

PS: Prius was SULEV for that time.

This was just the press release, not the actual study report, but asking why someone paid for the study is good skeptical practice.

I can't speak for the bolded, but my guess is they paid for this because they wanted a counter to postings and sites of the WHO article on diesel particulates link to cancer, or articles about it, because it was being used as propoganda by anti-diesel advocates. Not that they aren't a carcinogen, but the results of diesel equipment without emission controls in an enclosed space was being equated to personal diesel cars with DPFs on the open roads.

Is that a recent photo? In the past 60 years or so, the majority of other sources would have been gasoline vehicles.

VW sells Skoda in addition to the brands they sell in the US, so there is a lot of their cheater diesels on the roads in Europe, but Europe, or its governments, itself is to blame for their poor air quality. They supported diesel cars over gasoline, sorry petrol, because of fuel costs and GHG, with some areas further favoring by taxing it less. Then they were lenient on diesel emissions for ages. Euro 6 went into effect only recently, and it still allows a little more NOx than the EPA that went into effect nearly a decade ago. Then it isn't a new revelation that the emission test cycles they used were not representative of how the cars were driven in public, with a greater discrepancy between test results and real world for diesels than petrols.

 

About the Denver photo, I was 16 helping a family friend drive a VW Beatle to Rawlins, Wyoming. I didn't have a camera (or knew I needed one in 1966.) So I searched for Denver bowl images and this one came closest to what I remember. It was just after sunrise when we started our descent. In 1966 there were plenty of NOx and other pollution sources. But VW has another set of folks angry at them.

Source: Volkswagen faces shareholder claims over emissions scandal| Reuters

Dozens of large shareholders in Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) plan to sue the carmaker in a German court, seeking compensation for the plunge in its shares due to its emissions test cheating scandal.

Law firm Nieding + Barth said on Monday it would lodge a case with a regional court in Brunswick this week, seeking hundreds of millions of euros in damages on behalf of 66 institutional investors from the United States and Britain.

"On top of that, we collected several thousands of private investors. Therefore we think we are the biggest platform for suits against Volkswagen in Germany," said Klaus Nieding of Nieding + Barth.

Volkswagen's (VW) shares have lost almost a third of their value, or about 22 billion euros ($24 billion), since it admitted in September to misleading U.S. regulators about emissions with the help of on-board engine control software. ​

Of course there are others who suggest buying VW stock . . . I'm not one.

Bob Wilson

 

Volkswagen's (VW) shares have lost almost a third of their value, or about 22 billion euros ($24 billion), since it admitted in September to misleading U.S. regulators about emissions with the help of on-board engine control software. ​

Of course there are others who suggest buying VW stock . . . I'm not one.

Bob Wilson[/QUOTE]

I have no doubt the VW shares will rise after all this or in the midst of paying the EPA or other circumstances. Its like anything else in stocks its the timing. If you can time the bottom you can make money but its not easy..lol! Where it will go is still a big question mark. I feel VW will not regain its same status in any shape or form before the scandal cheat was revealed. As we go along here, Nations will want of piece of the action and the checks have yet to be printed ...we will see...With VW's reluctance to come clean I think the EPA is gonna slap the BIG WON! $18B on them.

 

10 years from now, most people won't have a clue what the vdub scandal was.

 

You are probably right...the public memory is unusually short they say. Maybe VW will have a scandal on their missrepresentation of how much wattage or amperage their cars can crank out instead...lol!

 

It might not just be VW in Europe;

Renault to recall 15,000 vehicles to check if emissions systems work in all temperatures | Daily Mail Online

"Renault will call back more than 15,000 diesel cars to check and potentially make tweaks to the engines so they meet emissions levels, it was confirmed on Tuesday.

French energy minister, Segolene Royal, said the carmaker was recalling the cars due to a filtration system that might only work at optimal test temperatures during an interview on RTL radio."

And importantly;

"Royal told RTL: 'Renault has committed to recalling a certain number of vehicles, more than 15,000 vehicles, to check them and adjust them correctly so the filtration system works even when it is very hot or when it is below 17 degrees, because that's when the filtration system no longer worked.' "

Which is why Paris and London are smog central, esp London, as it barely gets above 17c over than summer.

 

[QUOTE="bwilson4web,

Regardless, I remember descending into the Denver bowl:"

Bob Wilson[/QUOTE]

Bob,

I flew for an airline out of Detroit Metro Airport for over twenty years. I often descended into the smog bank on a "clear" day. Once on the ground I could not see the smog. It was very informative just how much crap we were breathing that most were not aware of.

Cheers!