VW Faces $17B Fine for Emissions Scam

VW gets sensitive about the comments.
Volkswagen Trying To Halt Trials In US Citing "Inflammatory" Comments Comparing Monkey Testing & Gas Chambers | CleanTechnica

 

Source: Porsche Makes It Official: Diesels are Done | TheDetroitBureau.com

Not that it didn’t seem official before, but Porsche is getting out of the diesel engine business in favor of battery-electric powertrains. This will make Porsche the first German automaker to dump diesels entirely.

The company, which is owned by Volkswagen AG, has been slowly divesting its line-up of diesel powerplants for the last couple of years. This was highlighted by the lack of a diesel for the next-gen Cayenne when it debuted last fall.

Now the Macan and Panamera models equipped with diesels are no longer available with a “no new diesel will be engineered” edict for the Macan S. The move is part of a “cultural shift” a Porsche spokesperson told AutoCar magazine.
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The sports car maker is looking to make inroads in its largest market, the U.S., in other ways too. Porsche is also working with all 189 dealer partners to install fast-charging infrastructure for customers. Six rapid chargers have just been installed at the Porsche Experience Center in Atlanta, with the Los Angeles experience center to follow. Porsche is also working with other organizations on a network of DC fast-chargers for U.S. cities and highways.​

Bob Wilson

 

they're all falling in lock step.

 

Mercedes is on the shortlist nowadays with their diesels too, according to one of the articles linked to the one that Bob posted.
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Diesel fuel, JP fuel and RP fuel all commend themselves by way of energy density over weight. These speak to weight-sensitive vehicles. Diesel on the road struggles with pollution control, and that I guess is why this thread spans 92 pages. Uses of kerosene as first presented as standard by Standard Oil Company have made profits you might not imagine, and human benefits, and may eventually be seen as among 20th century largest helpful things.

But benefit/harm balance changes through time especially as so many more humans come. Obtaining energy without burning anything is the new flavor. While still small and arguably arriving decades too late, it begins to arrive.

Kerosene by all its names continues to be big. Long after I'm gone it will become small. How and where and when that decrease happens will be of interest.

 

The most painful aspect for me now is that, almost all of those vehicles would be sold as used to third world countries, especially Africa and the middle east.

I wished my country are dammed serious about emissions testing and abatement.

The huge mortality rates that wouyemerge from the exports of these vehicles to Africa can't be comprehended.

This might be some of the reasons, the West, with their clean air act(California), have a longer lifespan than the other countries without such laws.

Countries like those, consider economics FIRST, before the ENVIRONMENT.

Has anyone seen the recent smog caused by emission in Beijing and India? Terrible.

Check out Lagos at night, and early morning rush hours to work.

I would never blame witchcraft and all that as causes of some of the deaths in Africa. Some are due to exponential corruption, lack of enforcing or setting up emissions limits(cap) on fossilized applications, as seen implemented by EPA!

 

Not solo, I bear a fair piece of responsibility for this thread. My motivation was the degree diesel advocates attacked the Prius with claims that upon close inspection proved hollow. When the cheating was revealed and worse, attempts to delay discovery, it amplified my resentment for the time investigating diesel claims.

The irony is if diesel advocates had focused on our common problem, low efficiency gas cars, we could have been allies. But instead, they allied with the gassers to poke fun at the Prius and too often making efficiency claims that rang hollow.

I like a thermally efficient engine that combined with an electric drive becomes more than the sum of its parts. So I weep to read claims of new engines as if they alone or low voltage electrical can make gasser's efficient enough to put off high power electrification, 50hp (38kW).

Bob Wilson

 

And then, there's this.
http://www.autonews.com/article/20180218/COPY01/302189995/mercedes-diesel-probe-scandal-software

 

Wind a company won't except response ability for their mouth season this is how it responds ;

So .... Daimler didn't harm their self, via their own behavior .... no - it was someone else - talkin' about daimler's malfeasance that makes it bad . What planet does that rational work on ...
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It's a German thing.

Did you know that German cars don't have brakes? You're suppose to get out of their way.

 

Remembering how often I discussed Jetta TDI performance: http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2018/02/2019-volkswagen-jetta-returns-40-mpg-on-the-highway.html

Introduced at the 2018 Detroit Auto Show earlier this year, the all-new Volkswagen Jetta is powered by a 1.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine that carries over from the last-generation model. The German automaker however, has given it a new standard six-speed manual transmission, while an eight-speed automatic is available as an option. Those transmissions replace the previous five-speed manual and six-speed automatic, helping improve fuel economy despite the engineremaining the same.

Both the manual and automatic models now return 40 mpg on the highway, which is a boost on the automatic which previously returned 38. The older manual model also returned 40 mpg on the highway. The combined fuel ratings have also gone up as a result, with both drivetrains returning 34 mpg, an increase of one mpg for the manual transmission, and two mpg for the automatic.

Although reaching 40 mpg on the highway keeps the Jetta competitive within the segment, it’s still not best-in-class with the Civic returning 42 mpg on the highway when equipped with the 1.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine and a CVT.​

Grim news.

Bob Wilson

 

Netflix has a program called "Hard NOx" that provided more details about primate testing, monkeys, to test the effects. But the testing company didn't realized that the diesel Beatle had the "cheat device."

A more technical presentation:

• EUGT - the front "research" organization for VW, Daimler, and BMW
• Loveless Respiratory Research Institute - did not know about the cheat device
• VW diesel Beatle, emissions monitoring, and dyno - to make sure the cheat was working

Source: 10 Monkeys and a Beetle: Inside VW’s Campaign for ‘Clean Diesel’ - The New York Times

. . .
German automakers had financed the experiment in an attempt to prove that diesel vehicles with the latest technology were cleaner than the smoky models of old. But the American scientists conducting the test were unaware of one critical fact: The Beetle provided by Volkswagen had been rigged to produce pollution levels that were far less harmful in the lab than they were on the road.

The results were being deliberately manipulated.
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Although Dr. McDonald and other employees at the institute exchanged emails about the Volkswagen defeat device after its exposure in 2015, Dr. McDonald testified that he had not followed the Volkswagen case closely and had realized only recently that the Beetle used in the tests was manipulated to produce artificially low emissions.

“I feel like a chump,” Dr. McDonald said.
​

Now I'm pissed.

Bob Wilson

 

Geesh.....

You really have to wonder who was making some of these decisions. Really what executive at any point in the line signs off on this?

It really does remind me of an old SNL skit "Bad Idea" jeans, where a group of guys, sit around talking about all these really bad choices they are making or are about to make.

Hard to fathom that VW would first decide to try to defraud the world by programming their vehicles to cheat emissions testing. Then follow that up with using monkeys in diesel exhaust testing.

This isn't 1975...you have major protest if a shampoo company tests shampoo on a animal, did they NOT think exposing monkeys to diesel exhaust wouldn't be met with similar or greater outrage?

People seem to have short memories or end up not really caring if they feel it doesn't directly affect them. But you have to wonder how many times VW executives can take the podium and apologize for their own company's actions?

At some point, "We" are shocked, that "We" did this, and "We" are looking into how this happened- doesn't cut it.

And I've said it before, in my family growing up Toyota, Honda and VW were the big vehicles most of my family owned. I have a real admiration and soft spot for VW. But these repeated scandals are shocking and hard to fathom.

 

Yeah same here.

Maybe the company name can persist, but with people coming and going the company's culture can get turned through 180 degrees, one small step at a time. Kind of like the premise of "Bridge on the River Kwai".

 

I remember a g_m commercial, showing a woman plugging in the inductive EV1 charger - underwater, with a bunch of goldfish in the tank;

I'm sure they ran tests before they did it, but the 'shock-proof' test felt over the top, until VW came along.
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My electric toothbrush used inductive charging and it's German!

 

400V vs 12V ..... good chance it'll be safe

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Meanwhile in Germany: Volkswagen Boss Returns To Diesels?!?! | CleanTechnica

Burn it down.

It being Volkswagen, but it also likely meaning the entire German and European economies. Don't care. They shouldn't be allowed to be too big to fail, so if it takes down an entire continent's economy, so be it.

 

Source: http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2018/03/toyota-dropping-diesel-cars-in-europe-at-the-end-of-2018.html

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By the end of 2018, Toyota will stop offering diesel-powered passenger cars in Europe. This decision has been in the making for a while, according to Toyota Europe CEO, Johan van Zyl. He adds that diesels have accounted for less than 10 percent of the automaker’s car sales in Europe.

But not all Toyota’s diesel products in Europe will disappear and the Hilux pickup truck, Land Cruiser SUV, and Proace light commercial vehicles will remain on sale.
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In 2016, Toyota’s fleet average was 105.4g/km. The 2017 result was lower, Toyota said without providing a detailed figure.

“The more hybrids we sell, the better our chances” of reaching the target, Toyota Europe Chairman Didier Leroy said.

The executive added that while automakers such as Volvo will rely heavily on 48-volt mild hybrids in the future, Toyota considers mild hybrids to be inferior to the full hybrids its offers.

“For us, mild hybrids wouldn’t be a step forward,” Leroy said. When asked about plug-in hybrids, Leroy was also skeptical because he said the requirement to recharge them is a disadvantage, and when they are not recharged their environmental benefit is nullified.​

Another nail . . .

Bob Wilson

 

I don't like Toyota stance towards plug-in hybrids, in a recent Geneva motor show Press Conference there is not a single word about plug-in variants. In the summer last year Akio said that there will be 10 plug-in models by 2020 or early 2020 (don't rememer), I would think that they will slowly start with the announcements.