VW Faces $17B Fine for Emissions Scam

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/business/international/vw-argued-for-easing-new-eu-tests-on-emissions.html?_r=0

LONDON — Volkswagen successfully lobbied to remove two key parts of Europe’s forthcoming auto emissions tests, an internal email shows, including a provision to measure the significant pollution released when an engine is started but hasn’t yet warmed up.

The automaker also argued against requiring special, high-speed tests for cars designed to be driven fast. Volkswagen, which owns the Porsche, Lamborghini and Audi brands, is a leading producer of fast cars. “Such topics must be deleted,” a Volkswagen executive wrote in an email last year to the European Commission, the European Union’s executive branch, referring to the two provisions.

The new tests, which still face a battle in the European Parliament, will be the first in Europe to require screening car pollution outside of a laboratory and in road tests meant to more closely reflect real driving. The email was included among documents made public by the commission after a request by Corporate Europe Observatory, a Brussels-based advocacy group.​

Opps!

Bob Wilson

 

sounds like the same domineering tone they tried to take with the epa. what a bunch of arrogant ba$ turds. they have chutzpah, i'll give them that.

 

Source: VW's November Sales Got Battered in Germany Too - Fortune

According to figures released by the national regulator KBA, VW brand sales in Germany, the company’s home market, fell 2% in November from a year earlier, badly lagging overall market growth of 8.9%. Until September, when the emissions scandal broke, it had been beating the overall market.
. . .
The figures come a day after VW’s U.S. unit said sales had fallen 25% on the year in November after it withdrew a number of the models affected by the scandal from the market. It hasn’t done that yet in European markets, and is counting on a more friendly regulatory environment to get by with relatively cheap and simple fixes to most of some 8 million cars in Europe that are affected.​

What is the German word that applies to the VW management, Schadenfreude? Or perhaps something darker.

Bob Wilson

ps. Fred's TDI forum may have noticed a decrease in new members but I'm not about to ask them.

 

Farfromthinkin.

 

MISSINNOGGIN
.

 

Me thinks "Schadenfreude" is what TOYOTA is thinking as it was eclipsed for one week as the worlds biggest auto seller. until the news came out on the software defeat in their ECM's. VWs stock loses 25 percent. EPA can sue to $18 Billion and US states can levy
fines for tax money paid out to owners which did not deserve those credits...Foreign nations doing the same...the list goes on.

Schadenfreude (/ˈʃɑːdənfrɔɪdᵊ/; German:[ˈʃaːdn̩ˌfʁɔɪdə] ( listen)), also known asepicaricacy/ˌɛpɨˈkærɨkəsi/ is pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.[1] This word is taken from German and literally means "harm-joy". It is the feeling of joy or pleasure when one sees another fail or suffer misfortune. It is also borrowed by some other languages. An English term of similar meaning (but with no noun equivalent) is "to gloat"; which means to feel, or express, great, often malicious, pleasure, or self-satisfaction, at one's own success, or at another's failure.[2]

 

congrats to german consumers for flexing their purchasing muscles. maybe they'll vote out their simpering politicians who are cow towing to vdub. it's a shame we all don't have that kind of self control.

 

VW has a lot of employees - in fact same size company abouts but twice the number of employees than Toy. The latest is that about 50 VW employees have stepped forward to reveal how the 'defect software' was embedded in the ECM. I feel they may just employees chosen to take the fall instead of higher ups taking the ax. Just my opinion. Numbers are out..VW has taken quite a a hit on their sales...ofcourse they couldn't sell any diesels as well as some select gas models. The EPA wants a fix in which they will examine software wise which will put into compliance the illegal cars. THAT is going to be interesting but I understand that the software fix might be less stringent for Europe and polute more. I don't know...its all in a state of flux but one thing for sure..I think that VW will not be able to get their sales numbers as before. Then again...the public has a somewhat short memory..

 

I've been wondering the degree the cheat diesels were contributing to California's NOx and then this article shows up:

The 7-5 vote by the South Coast Air Quality Management District governing board will cut pollution credits allocated to Southern California’s largest facilities, including power plants and factories over the next seven years, but at a level that will further delay the installation of pollution controls at the region's six major oil refineries and may not be defensible under legal challenge.
. . .
The market-based emissions reduction program has long been criticized for being flooded with too many pollution credits, making it easier for oil refineries and other big polluters to buy up rights to emit smog-forming pollution than to install better pollution controls. As a result, air quality officials say, smog-forming nitrogen oxides from the 275 facilities regulated under the program have remained flat over the last seven years, even as the region has missed deadlines to clean the nation’s worst smog.
. . .
The board adopted the proposal of industry groups, introduced as a motion by Orange County Supervisor Shawn Nelson. The measure cuts the amount of nitrogen oxides emissions across the region per day from 26.5 tons to 14.5 tons by 2022. Staff had proposed steeper, faster cuts that would have cut nitrogen oxides emissions credits by half -- or 14 tons per day to 12.5 tons by 2022.
. . . ​

Source: LA Times

We'd need:

• number of cheat diesels in California - some fraction of the 500,000 sold in the USA
• actual emissions per vehicle - reports are rates from 5-40x but these are driving profile dependent

It would also make sense to understand the heavy truck diesel contribution.

Bob Wilson

 

Bob,

There is some information on sources of anthropogenic NOx in California (albeit a little dated now) at
http://www.dieselforum.org/files/dmfile/TheContributionofDieselEnginestoEmissionsofROG.pdf .

EPA emission factors from the various mobile sources (including OTR Class 8 diesel trucks) are available at http://greet.es.anl.gov/files/vehicles-13 , Tables A2-A23.

Hope these help.

 

Found in a New York Times article, this reference:

I think it is pretty funny. Then there is this one too:

So I added a comment about how these idiots have given (and continue) to give diesels a bad name and hurt sales.

Bob Wilson

 

Sorry bisco, couldn't resist.

 

until we convert all our heavy on road equipment, vehicles and busses to cleaner diesel, the bad name won't go away.

 

sadly, the pathetic thing is that these German comedians are really missing the point. To try & intimate that carb & U.S. legislators are responsible for morons that deliberately rig their diesel vehicles so that they smoke heavily, & therefore most US diesels are just like that, and therefore our entire country are a bunch of hypocrites & we really have no business in complaining (much less imposing fines) over just a teeny bit of VW NOx .... it really tells you how many Germans may perceive reality. It says in essence that we are the ones with the problem.
.

 

right. it's called arrogance. just ask the french. wait, that might be the pot calling the kettle black.

 

What? What? That black, pickup truck running around Huntsville that blasts huge clouds of black smoke in traffic is my problem?

Cool! Can I shoot 'em?


For every 'coal chipped' pickup (one locally) about every 3-4 months, I'll see another rolling junker trailing a cloud of oil smoke from broken/worn springs, failing head gaskets or valve seals. Then there are the 'soon to be junkers' that gutted their exhaust system and added megaphone mufflers ('The Mouse that Roared.')

I laugh with the Germans because we have enough of those nuts who are completely oblivious to how foolish they are. Those 'rolling coal' kill sales with every cloud of soot. Commercial diesels don't have the money to waste on chippin'.

So if the Germans think USA lawyers are hypocrites . . . is that any different than what many of us think?

If this perception adds resistance to future diesel sales in the USA, it will be a fitting end to "Meet the Volkswagens." The ego-owners brought this on themselves and VW and some USA dealers encouraged them.

Bob Wilson

 

I like this: California Court to Hear VW Diesel Lawsuits | TheDetroitBureau.com

A federal court in California will wind up handling the growing list of lawsuits filed against Volkswagen over its admitted cheating in diesel emissions tests, a multidistrict judicial panel has decided.

There had been speculation that the legal actions – now estimated at more than 450 suits – would be turned over to the same Detroit judge who recently oversaw the bankruptcy of the Motor City. But the panel said it was more appropriate to go to San Francisco because a large number of VW owners and dealers are located there.
. . .​

"Speculation" my *ss! VW was hoping to beg off the risk of bankruptcy. Perhaps @mojo can report from the court. Heck, it might be interesting enough to take him off my 'ignore user' list . . . (not really.)

Bob Wilson

 

perhaps we can print some greenbacks for vdub, and tale over control of the u.s. entity.

 

Source: VW releases internal probe findings | Business | DW.COM | 10.12.2015

VW held the press conference to release the preliminary findings of an internal investigation into the emissions scandal. A full report is expected to be made public at a general meeting scheduled for April 21. An external probe being carried out by the US law firm Jones Day will likely run well into next year.
. . .
As part of those enquiries, investigators have confiscated some 1,500 smartphones and ordered 2,000 employees not to delete or lose any data. In all, they are mulling through 102 terabytes of data, or the equivalent of 50 million books.


VW has already suspended nine employees it believes may have played some role in the cheating. On Thursday, Pötsch insisted that no one, regardless of his or her rank, would be spared from the probes.
. . . ​

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/business/international/vw-emissions-scandal.html?_r=0

WOLFSBURG, Germany — Volkswagen said on Thursday that its emissions cheating scandal began in 2005 with a decision to heavily promote diesel engines in the United States and a realization that those engines could not meet clean air standards.
. . .
The cheating began a decade ago, when Volkswagen was developing a new diesel engine and opted for a less expensive pollution control technology. Later, the German automaker phased in a newer technology that used the chemical urea to neutralize nitrogen oxide emissions, which are a harmful pollutant.

Cars with the newer chemical technology should have been able to pass emissions tests legally. But apparently, Volkswagen wanted to minimize the frequency with which customers or dealers would need to refill the tank that holds the chemical. And so Volkswagen programmed the cars to dial back emission controls — except when tests were underway — in order to minimize consumption of the chemical.​

Bob Wilson