VW Faces $17B Fine for Emissions Scam

gives a new meaning to the expression caught with his pants down
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He was stupid in general but not stupid enough to stay on. As with other execs who have blundered he was either advised to go or knew he had to because he knew the drill...that is he would have to go and make speeches endlessly about how sorry he was and it would never happen again as well as be put before the share holders as to HOW could this happen and make excuses for a 25% drop in stock value.
Then we have dealers who are losing their shirts, new and used cars not selling and the best surprise. $18 Billion fine from the EPA.
I'm not going to talk about the other fines..but if he stayed on he would have to own up to these penalties and answer to them.
Naw...hes too much of a coward - he took his golden parachute and pulled the plug. In some ways its kinda like the GM Head of litigation exec who retired when all the cobalt ignition tumbler fiasco was going full steam. He wanted to stay and ride it out but..It comes down to this. He didn't know about all these lawsuits and what it was costing GM? What a JOKE! He pulled the plug while the getting was good with nice pension. And so it goes..its a common and predictable pattern. Why take the heat so pull the plug and kindly melt away into the background. Let the next CEO take it. Remember that just because you make a 7 or 8 figure income it does not always equip you with common sense. And in this case what was the gain compared to the great risk they took?

 

They received great pay while there, and got great severrence pay when problems arise from them not doing their jobs right.

 

That's a little bit who we are as Americans, lacking some respect for the degree.. We tend to be open minded (to a fault sometimes) to anyone making a technical or "snake oil" selling point, even if they do not have a degree. Overseas you need the advanced degree to get credibility.

 

On the inverse thats WHY we are not like them. WE can have people who did not graduate from High School and somehow make a fortune thinking up some ingenious invention or use other people's ideas to create commerce and become a business success.
I think not relying on credentials or placards on the wall is a true measure of the greatness that is America.
Also not taking themselves too serious can be an attribute as well.

 

...I agree...not saying its a bad thing...just pointing out a cultural difference.

 

Exactly Right!

Actually, I was in that exact situation about sometime around 1990 as the head engineer of a development and manufacturing project. The short version of the story was a black box was specified to work to performance level "X". After about of year of development work, the box finally and successful performed to level "X". Then in some backroom dealing with the General Manager and Customer, a deal was struck where the customer would pay some more $$$ for performance "X + 10". So I was told to make said box "pass the test" at "X+10".

Wth???

At this point, one makes a decision. My decision was simply "not on my watch". Within minutes I was removed from my position as the head engineer and sent home. The next day the "new" engineering leads (actually not bad guys) were in the testing facilities figuring out how to "configure" the testing equipment. My layoff was probably just weeks away.

Then something very unexpected happened. We were bought out by a bigger company. Faster than a lightning strike, the General Managers and his cronies were fired and walked out the door to make room for the new bosses. (Turns out the GM sued the buying company in his earlier life. The buying company wasted exactly 0.00001 nanoseconds making amends.) The firing squad got entirely taken out by a surgical strike.

 

When I worked for General Electric, we had a case of time card abuse by three people (the ones convicted) in a small group in a satellite office. Initially all of GE was barred from Federal contracts . . . lasted two days until a light bulb somewhere in the the Federal government needed to be replaced. Then it was narrowed to just GE Space Division. Our satellite office was barred from competing on an Army contract and years later, I left GE, voluntarily, when the rot finally reached our Huntsville office.

The term I coined in GE was "electro-politcal problem." The engineering problem was over taken by office politics. When you see that happening, keep your resume current and network with peers in your field. The clock is ticking.

Bob Wilson

 

Life - imitating Dilbert.
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It would be interesting if future sales of VW diesels could be linked to fixing or junking the cheater diesels. In effect, inflating the value of getting VW hands on the older diesels to enable sale of a new one. It would pose an interest conflict to current owners of cheater VWs:

• Is the future of 'legal' VW diesels so important you would give up your 'cheater' VW?

Bob Wilson

 

Well this was unexpected: Volkswagen creates U.S. diesel emissions claims program| Reuters

Volkswagen of America said on Thursday it is creating an independent claims program for the owners of nearly 600,000 diesel vehicles that emit up to 40 times legally allowable emissions.

The German automaker (VOWG_p.DE) said it was naming compensation expert Ken Feinberg, who administered compensation funds for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, BP Plc (BP.L) Deepwater Horizon oil spill and General Motors Co (GM.N) ignition switch crashes, to create and administer the program.

VW has acknowledged that 482,000 2.0 liter 2009-2015 diesel cars and 85,000 3.0 liter SUVs and larger cars have higher-than-allowed emissions and faces more than 500 U.S. lawsuits.

VW said Feinberg "will develop an independent, fair and swift process for resolving these claims."
. . . ​

This sounds like 'buy back' is coming. It may be cheaper to buy back the cheat diesels than make them 'clean.'

Bob Wilson

 

wow, you could knock me over with a feather. this kind of action could save vdub in the long run.

 

I wanted to stay within 'fair use' guidelines:

Camille Biros, deputy administrator of the VW claims program, said it is too early to say if the program would offer buybacks to vehicle owners, cash or other specific compensation for mileage or performance harmed by emissions repairs. "Everything is on the table," Biros said.

Feinberg said the program would need to know what VW's recall fixes are before it can move forward.


"Until we have an understanding of the remedies" we can't predict costs, Feinberg said on a conference call.

One goal of the program is to get claims out of the legal system, Feinberg said. In other similar compensation programs participants have agreed to forgo lawsuits, but no decisions about that have been made, he said.​

But a buy-back makes a lot of sense. It is a fixed cost and does not 'fund' a bunch of civil claims lawyers who typically take 1/3d of any award.

To really screw with their heads, "swap" a clean diesel for a cheat diesel. Then ship the cheat diesels to where they are legal . . . EU comes to mind.

Bob Wilson

 

hitlers company hires a jewish attorney, where's hill when we need him?

 

Will be interesting as to HOW MUCH their compensation rate will be in regards to how much the car cost originally. I am sure condition and mileage will be considered in one scenario but will it be a across the board rate to speed things up? Ahhh..the mystery..lol!

 

Will they be basing the value as it is now or before the scandal hit?

 

The engines may be, but the car itself won't. There will be too many legal differences to make it viable; rear fog lights, vin numbers, turn signal colour, side marker reflectors, headlamp aim and compliance markings.

Probably easier to just sell them to Africa or Russia or even South America?

 

Even reselling 'em back to Germany - it seems to be not such a big deal there.
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Source: Tesla’s Musk and 44 Others Suggest Leveraging VW Scandal To Force It To Sell More ZEVs

. . .

An Open Letter To California Air Resources Board Chairman Mary Nichols

The VW emissions scandal is mainly the result of physics meeting fiction. In the simplest terms, we have reached the point of de miminis returns in extracting performance from a gallon of diesel while reducing pollutants, at least at reasonable cost. Unsurprisingly, and despite having the greatest research and development program in diesel engines, VW had to cheat to meet current European and U.S. standards. Meeting future tighter diesel standards will prove even more fruitless.

For a significant fraction of the non-compliant diesel cars already in the hands of drivers, there is no real solution. Drivers won’t come in for a fix that compromises performance. Further, solutions which result in net greater CO2 emissions, a regulated pollutant, are inappropriate for CARB to endorse. Retrofitting urea tank systems to small cars is costly and impractical. Some cars may be fixed, but many won’t and will be crushed before they are fixed.

A giant sum of money thus will be wasted in attempting to fix cars that cannot all be fixed, and where the fix may be worse than the problem if the cars are crushed well before the end of their useful lives. We, the undersigned, instead encourage the CARB to show leadership in directing VW to “cure the air, not the cars” and reap multiples of what damage has been caused while strongly advancing California’s interests in transitioning to zero emission vehicles.

The solution we propose for VW and the CARB is to, in a legally enforceable form:

1./ Release VW from its obligation to fix diesel cars already on the road in California, which represent an insignificant portion of total vehicles emissions in the State, and which cars do not, individually, present any emissions-related risk to their owners or occupants

2./ Instead, direct VW to accelerate greatly its rollout of zero emission vehicles, which by their very nature, have zero emissions and thus present zero opportunities for cheating, and also do not require any enforcement dollars to verify

3./ Require that this acceleration of the rollout of zero emissions vehicles by VW result in a 10 for 1 or greater reduction in pollutant emissions as compared to the pollution associated with the diesel fleet cheating, and achieve this over the next 5 years

4./ Require that VW invest in new manufacturing plants and/or research and development, in the amounts that they otherwise would have been fined, and do so in California to the extent that California would have been allocated its share of the fines

5./ Allow VW some flexibility in the execution and timing of this plan by allowing it to be implemented via zero emission vehicle credits.

In contrast to the punishments and recalls being considered, this proposal would be a real win for California emissions, a big win for California jobs, and a historic action to help derail climate change.

The bottleneck to the greater availability of zero emissions vehicles is the availability of batteries. There is an urgent need to build more battery factories to increase battery supply, and this proposal would ensure that large battery plant and related investments, with their ensuing local jobs, would be made in the U.S. by VW.

A satisfactory way to fix all the diesel cars does not likely exist, so this solution side steps the great injury and uncertainty that imposing an ineffective fix would place on individual diesel car owners. A drawn out and partial failure of the process will only exacerbate the public’s lack of trust in the industry and its regulators. By explicit design, this proposal would achieve, in contrast, a minimum of a 10X reduction in pollutant emissions as compared to a complete fix.

There is a precedent for this type of resolution. In the industry-wide 1990 diesel truck cheating scandal, the EPA chose not to require an interim recall but instead moved up the deadline for tougher standards to make up the difference. This proposal does the same for VW and ties the solution to a transition to zero emissions vehicles.

We strongly urge CARB to consider this proposal in resolving the VW cheating scandal.


* * * end of letter * * *

"Help" is a four letter word:

• A blessing to offer.
• Wise to ask.
• F*cked if forced on you.

Bob Wilson

 

carb would be helping to create their own demise? will be interesting to see if they care more about the environment than their jobs.