Volkswagen Could Face $18 Billion Fine Over Emission-Cheating Software

After getting caught cheating on emissions testing by means of software, Volkswagen could face up to $18 billion in fines, reports USA Today. That number is based on the company being assessed the maximum penalty of $37,500 per affected vehicle. That's not the only bad news for Volkswagen, which has halted sales of its 4-cylinder diesel cars; the linked article reports that the violations "could also invite charges of false marketing by regulators, a vehicle recall and payment to car owners, either voluntarily or through lawsuits. Volkswagen advertised the cars under the 'Clean Diesel' moniker. The state of California is also investigating the emissions violations."

Comments

23% of the company

[crow]

For reference, $18B would be about 23% of the market cap of the company. In other words, if the company were to pay such a fine by issuing new stock and giving the stock to the government, the government would end up with 23% of the company (or so goes the math if the stock market were being logical).

That's not what's going to happen, but it shows that the company should be able to raise the money to pay the fine if it comes to it. Of course, such things usually take many years of lawsuits and appeals before it's all settled, which is why these things often are settled out of court for a lower price.

Re:23% of the company

[lucm]

The $18B doesn't cover the cost of 500,000 customers who not only got ripped off, but also were exposed to dangerous levels of harmful fumes. This is a torts lawyer wet dream.

Re:23% of the company

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Plus, aren't all those customers now stuck with cars that are either not street legal(I know that pre-emissions-standards vehicles were grandfathered; but these aren't) or will absolutely suck once they get reflashed so that the 'clean' ECU parameters run all the time, rather than just during testing(I'm assuming that something about the test-mode parameters was lousy, or they would have had no incentive to try this little trick)?

That seems like the sort of thing that might make them justifiably unhappy, and in a way with a relatively large, and relatively easily quantified, dollar value attached.

Re:23% of the company

[RichMan]

I would prefer if fines were done by issuing stock to the government. Effectively it would devalue all currently held stock penalizing the stock holders who are the actual people where the "buck stops" and who have control over the board and the real direction of the company

Re:23% of the company

[FranTaylor]

Ripped off by getting better performance than they would have if the emissions controls were in 'test mode' all the time?

ripped off by having engines that are running outside of their design envelope, with premature part failures and lower reliability

Re:23% of the company

[FranTaylor]

most European standards are STRICTER than the American ones.

Not for diesels, which is what we are talking about here. In this case the American standards are stricter. You have to pull out some massive engineering mojo to make a diesel passenger car that's street legal in the US. Apparently VW doesn't have what it takes.

Re:23% of the company

[mrbester]

€ € € you mean. Germany hasn't used Deutchmarks since 1999.

Re:23% of the company

[FranTaylor]

So, as far as I can make out, you seem to be claiming that VW released a car designed to be unreliable and break down, so they can make money on repairs?

that's one reason

another is that they tested the car with focus groups and the come-back was "it needs more power" and it is cheaper to fudge the software than it is to design a new engine

Re:23% of the company

[swb]

Why not personal financial culpability for the officers of the company? The fine is their personal responsibility to be paid from their own assets, up to and including all their personal property being auctioned off and the balance paid through onerous payments that guarantee a net income of no more than $40k per year until the fine is settled.

Bar any third party payments from insurance, corporate repayment or any other third sources. Garnish any cash payments to them from friends or family. Require home visits and auditing to make sure their lifestyle doesn't exceed the income minus payments they have to make after having their assets liquidated.

And claw back any monies earned as a result of the fineable behavior and paid out to others, up to and including raiding pensions, trusts and other sheltered accounts. Remember how OJ had some huge pension that couldn't be touched after he lost the wrongful death lawsuit?

Or, just throw them in jail for 10 years.

Re:23% of the company

[FranTaylor]

If they "fix" the cars to make them meet the standards

They will probably run like the old diesel rabbits that they sold back in the 1980s. My boss had one and it literally would not make it up the hill with a full load of passengers. We got out and pushed.

Re:23% of the company

[Calydor]

According to the previous article about this, the cars are still LEGAL, they are just nowhere near as clean as they claim. It's not a "clean" or "dirty" question, all cars are dirty to a certain extent.

Re:23% of the company

[FranTaylor]

So, as far as I can make out, you seem to be claiming that VW released a car designed to be unreliable and break down, so they can make money on repairs?

You've never worked on VW beetle, have you? They were designed to be as cheap and flimsy as possible. And with the poor oil flow to the valves, the Beetles were also DESIGNED to be unreliable. Do you hear that chirping sound from a VW beetle's exhaust? That sound is the valves grinding themselves away.

Re:23% of the company

[FranTaylor]

According to the previous article about this, the cars are still LEGAL, they are just nowhere near as clean as they claim. It's not a "clean" or "dirty" question, all cars are dirty to a certain extent.

they are only legal because the alternative would be chaos

Re:23% of the company

[drinkypoo]

Not for diesels, which is what we are talking about here. In this case the American standards are stricter.

The American standards are different. They focus on emissions per gallon burned, not per mile traveled. I have yet to see a study which shows that this actually produces less pollution than the european standard, but I would be interested in such a thing.

To me, this is like the argument over THC and driving. OK, criminalize use before/while driving... if you can show that it causes accidents. Well, is this actually causing more pollution?

Re:23% of the company

[TwoUtes]

Which Beetles are you referring to? The older first gen beetles, with the air cooled flat four chirped because the stock exhaust pipes had perforated baffles that whistled as the exhaust gas flowed through. Replace those tailpipes with, say straight pipe, and the chirp went away. My dad's '61 didn't chirp after he put on some flared stainless pipes. Valves faces and seats aren't lubricated by oil. The valve guides and stems are, but the faces are not. Unless the piston rings are bad. You may be referring to the cylinder behind the oil cooler, which I believe is number 3. It would starve for cooling air and the exhaust valve would eventually fail, popping the valve head off the stem and frag the cylinder. My '70 did that. Good times.

Re:23% of the company

[i.r.id10t]

That sound is from the exhaust design, not the engine design - attach the exhaust from a Porsche 356 or an aftermarket Bursch or Dansk and it will sound *much* better.

Now, if you hear one rattling like a drawer full of spoons that could be very loosely adjusted valves (iirc spec is a gap of 009 for push rods and valve rocker arms) or something funky happening with the generator pulley.

Re:23% of the company

[kamapuaa]

Well it's not like gallons burned and miles traveled are unrelated concepts. A TDI Passat gets 25% better mileage than a 4 cylinder Passat. It evidently also pollutes more, although I'm not sure if it pollutes 25% more.

Re:23% of the company

[mspohr]

These were advertised and sold as "clean diesels". Presumably people who bought them thought they were buying a diesel that didn't pollute (much).

Re:23% of the company

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the previous article about this, the cars are still LEGAL, they are just nowhere near as clean as they claim. It's not a "clean" or "dirty" question, all cars are dirty to a certain extent.

Uh, no.

During normal driving situations, the controls are turned off, allowing the cars to spew as much as 40 times the pollution allowed under the Clean Air Act, the E.P.A. said.

Re:23% of the company

[countach]

The officers of the company most likely have no clue how the engine management software works. We don't even know if the managers in the engine management division knew. For that matter, we don't even know if they outsourced this component.

Re:23% of the company

[Anonymous Coward]

During the test (as I've understood the emission chemistry explained elsewhere) the EGR enables and causes the exhaust to burn hotter, rather than colder. The catalyst needed to reduce the NO2 in the exhaust requires a high temp, which the EGR system supplies by counter-intuitively burning more fuel to achieve. Apparently this is why many/most VW TDI's get better mileage than their stickers - the ECU disables the EGR during normal driving, "saving" the fuel that would otherwise have been used to keep the emissions catalyst hot enough to properly scrub the exhaust.

Re:23% of the company

[AK Marc]

They are designed to be cheap to make and cheap to repair. You are whining about a centuries old engineering problem. Do you seal bearings, increasing their unserviced life by 2, or leave them unsealed, so they have to be "repaired" twice as often. Note, the sealed bearings can't be serviced, so they become disposable. That particular debated has gone on long enough that it's nearly solved, but so many others haven't been solved. For a car designed to be the Model T of the '40s, it was what it was supposed to be.

Your complaints are as idiotic as someone who doesn't buy his tools at the Snap-On truck when it comes to his shop, but goes to Wal-Mart for wrenches, then complains when they break. They weren't "designed" to be unreliable. They were designed to be cheap. It was cheap, and sold many many cars because of it. Your example makes you look dumb, not the Bug.

Re:23% of the company

[AK Marc]

That makes no sense. By that definition, a corporation doesn't exist. It's not a corporation, it's a group of people. It's not a corporation's money, it's the investor's money.

Market cap will spiral to earnings per share (or some number based on financial performance). The share has an inherent value. 100% of a company that makes $10B profit a year is worth $10B per year. That can't spiral to $0, as when it drops below the "value" someone will buy it up and turn your loss into a profit.

If you own shares of a company that's committing fraud, you should take more interest in the running of it and vote in a board that is interested in the same things you are. If you don't, then you get what you deserve when something like this happens.

Re:23% of the company

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

They don't have a choice. They wont get emissions test sticker if their ECM is out of date.

Re:23% of the company

[doctorfaustus]

The cars may be legal, but the sale of them, the misrepresentation involved in the sale was a fraud. Consumers paid their money for cars of a certain performance grade, and to make the cars legal will significantly lower that grade. Expect a very costly class action from customers who didn't get what was promised.

Re:23% of the company

[ultranova]

Ripped off by getting better performance than they would have if the emissions controls were in 'test mode' all the time?

Ripped off by getting something that pollutes more than advertised - and, presumably, will have less power than advertised if that issue is ever fixed.

And, if you're worried about 'harmful fumes', you wouldn't have bought a stinky, polluting, smoke-spewing diesel in the first place.

And they didn't. They bought a clean diesel. Only it turns out it's not clean after all, because Wolkswagen lied. And let's hope this was the only scam Volkswagen ran, and there's no other problems, for example with safety features.

But you needn't worry. Volkswagen is a huge company; we all know it'll get away with this. Laws are for us, not our masters.

Re:23% of the company

[rgmoore]

At least, that's what our own goverment says; out of one side of their mouth they say this is a public health issue, and out of the other side they tell us that the owners have not been exposed to anything harmful as a result. So which is it?

It's both. The diesels in question produce up to 40x the emissions standard for oxides of nitrogen. Oxides of nitrogen at those levels aren't especially toxic, but in the presence of sunlight they slowly react to produce ozone, which is nasty. High levels of ozone- levels that were regularly produced in the most polluted cities until we instituted smog controls- cause severe respiratory problems in people with existing respiratory problems like asthma. Ozone pollution certainly can kill. So even if the problem isn't so severe that the drivers have to stop driving immediately for their own safety, it's not something we want to allow in the long term.

Re:23% of the company

[nomadic]

Not really. The US actually has stricter regulations than the EU across a number of major areas, like air pollution standards for power plants (definitely not a "tiny, select area[]" by anyone's definition), The US' Endangered Species Act is stronger and more comprehensive than the EU's. Even where standards are technically higher under EU directives than US federal environmental policy, such as in drinking water, failure to meet those standards is rampant, particularly in Eastern European countries.

Re:23% of the company

[Z00L00K]

Then you have misunderstood the EGR. What the EGR do is to recirculate some exhaust lowering the oxygen content in the combustion chamber, which in turn lowers the combustion temperature and result in a lower NOx level. The EGR gases are usually also cooled down before entering the intake.

The downside with a lower combustion chamber temperature is that the engine will provide less power as well, all according to the ideal gas law. To compensate for this the boost pressure through a turbocharger is pretty high - newer engines conforming to the latest emission standards have a higher boost than previous generations - even up to 4 bar (4 atmospheres) boost. (way more than what a gasoline engine have)

On a diesel there's a catalytic converter to take care of some HC that may remain, but the primary objective is that there's a particle filter that catches most particles - where the majority are soot particles. This filter has to be regenerated at regular intervals which is done by injecting some additional diesel into the filter where it's ignited. However since the soot isn't entirely clean there's an accumulation of ash residue that requires a replacement of the filter at regular intervals - usually >= 100000 km.

In order to lower the NOx even more there's also on modern vehicles also an injection of a selective catalytic reagent (SCR), often named AdBlue or Diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) (which is a clear water-based liquid containing urea) into the exhaust system that combines with the NOx and other compounds in the exhaust fumes to produce nitrogen, carbon dioxide and water.

Re:23% of the company

[muecksteiner]

(ironic that anti-Americanism sells cars in the US.)

The U.S. car industry worked long and hard to achieve this elusive goal.

Re:23% of the company

[AK Marc]

Maybe if the shareholders were held responsible for things like this, then they'd pick managers less likely to endorse such behavior.

Re:23% of the company

[MrNaz]

Problem is, shareholders rarely know what managers are likely to do or not to do. Managers' CVs don't usually contain evidence of their willingness to be dishonest.

Besides, blaming the shareholders for picking the wrong managers, but absolving the managers is pretty backwards. You punish the person who did the crime. Not someone that you think may have been in a position to help them avoid doing it.

Re:23% of the company

[swb]

If stockholders held any actual power in a company, I'd be fine with making fines punitive for stockholders.

But we live in a world where senior management in collusion with the board have essentially stripped shareholders of any power. Most shareholder initiated proxies are non-binding, when they're allowed at all. Boards routinely rubber stamp management decisions-- mostly because they are so often comprised of managers from other companies (boards have more recursion than CompSci 3104).

The idea that officers don't know what might be happening seems a practical truth, but it flies in the face of stratospheric executive salaries justified with the general logic that CEOs and senior management are geniuses, singularly responsible for the success and advancement of their organizations. If they want to get paid as if that was true, they should face the concomitant assignment of responsibility.

Saying "they didn't know" seems to be a failure of management (the verb) -- failure to setup adequate reporting and oversight processes.

Further, in this specific case it seems unlikely that a rogue employee or even rogue engineering group would have been unlikely to be solely responsible. The scale of risk, cost remediation and fixing the problem (emissions) correctly seems to have been something that would have naturally bubbled up through management.

Re:23% of the company

[DarkOx]

Oh please it does not work that way and you know it. First off its always going to go on up the chain that way until it gets to the CEO.

The kind of person who would order the commission of such a fraud is by definition not the sort that will step forward during the finger pointing when it happens. This person is dishonest and the promise of hefty fines or jail isn't usually the sort of thing that gets the dishonest to suddenly come forward. So pretty much no matter what the most guilty party is going to say 'my boss told me to do it.' That person who may be innocent is going to say 'wasn't me' etc on up the chain.

Then we get into if Bob the CXO says:

'Now Ted I don't care what you have to do, you will make the numbers this quarter or else you're fired!'

Does that mean the Bob induced Ted the director of North American operations to do something illegal? Certainly Bob will say its understand that there is an implied caveat that our company policy of complying with all laws an regulations would be flowed. Ted might not see it that way. You run into the "higher the vaguer" problem.

Re:23% of the company

[bluefoxlucid]

People--laymen, folks like you and I, with no technical education on EPA pollution measurements or their reasoning--envision pollution as toxic, poisonous, choking smoke and sludge pumped into the atmosphere. Exhaust fumes that eat away your lungs by the fouling of burning ash and poisonous esters and hydrocarbons. Carcinogenic compounds that shred tissue, blacken water, kill birds, and rain down the sulfuric fury of acid rain.

NOx emissions are relatively harmless. NO emissions rapidly oxidize to NO2: at 1ppm, it takes roughly 3500 minutes for half of the particles to oxidize; at 20,000 ppm, it takes ten seconds. That means NO concentration in areas of excessively high vehicle activity are sharply less than linear: 100x as much emissions means far less than 100x as much NO in the air.

NO2 tends to form a weak type of acid rain, which acts as fertilizer when it reaches soil. This can be problematic if excessive plant growth is a problem, to a limited degree. NO2 doesn't lead to global warming; it has such an impact on atmospheric methane that high-emission diesel engine output leads to a net global cooling effect, in practice. NO2 can react with ammonia and water vapours to produce said acid compounds, which can damage lungs; ammonia has a half-life of about 1 day in atmosphere, so is relatively rare.

The EPA's NOx output limits are pretty low; they're a lot higher than US limits, and the EU has a lot more diesel traffic. At the same time, larger vehicles are emitting much higher output as well; however, truck freight shipping accounts for 150 billion miles, while passenger vehicle traffic accounts for 3,000 billion miles, so passenger vehicles are significant. Fluctuations in NO2 output in passenger vehicles are thus important and of high impact.

Considering Europe already has a lot higher output in total, we can use them as a model. The impacts are all local--wind, rain, etc. decay and precipitate NOx emissions out of the air--and so this isn't a global climate issue. In the end, what we're talking about is a non-issue that we're seeing as a real issue because we've defined things bureaucratically that we don't want to change based on competent risk analysis--which is the name of the game when you're playing bureaucracy.

In short: the effects of NOx output is negligible, even in total fleet consideration (if *all* US cars did this, what would happen?). The impact of NOx pollution is minimal, compared to the impact of the type of idealized pollution people think of when you use the term "pollution". Substituting the term "pollution" for "nitrous oxide emissions" when making press releases is a way to manipulate the minds of the reader, suggesting to them a situation far different than the one you're describing, while being completely correct in what you're describing, relying in a difference in understanding of a term ("pollution") to send a dishonest message to the listener.

This is a technical concept in political rhetoric. It's one of those things you study when you want to learn how to lie and manipulate and mislead *without* actually lying. It lets you say things that would get you ripped apart by any investigative journalism or random idiot who's paying attention by not saying those things, instead saying something *truthful* that you know your audience will *interpret* as those untrue things you want to say.

That kind of rhetoric is the driving motivation for a certain breed of pedantry. I'm trying to develop the skilled use of pedantry as a technical countermeasure against misleading rhetoric. Pedantry is itself another form of rhetoric, useful for this purpose; and, as you can obviously surmise, it draws the discussion more toward a need for technical correctness: the above argument only works if nobody can show I'm technically wrong, and demonstrate actual harm. Of course, my purpose is just to raise attention to what's being said and what risks exist; I'm not really interested in pushing a conclusion, so I'm not really invested in anything more than pointing out the rhetoric.

"could face up to $18 billion in fines"

[Nutria]

And a civilization-killer asteroid *could* crash into the Earth this evening. They're both equally unlikely.

Hang 'em high...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Unless there is some mitigating factor that none of the reports on this story have so far mentioned; Volkswagen seems to be 100% deserving of an absolutely brutal smackdown.

Building ECU code specifically to deliver 'correct' results under test; and totally different results elsewhere, is going to be difficult to explain as an 'accident'; and also the sort of thing that it'd be pretty tricky for a single rogue actor to pull off without the knowledge, and probably the cooperation, of others on the design team and in management.

I realize that it is considered unspeakably barbaric to pierce the corporate veil and cruelly touch the people who actually made the decisions; but under any non-corporate circumstance I'd have to imagine that the prosecution would have a stack of conspiracy charges so thick that it has to be delivered by two burly paralegals, in addition to charges related to the violations themselves; and all the possible civil litigation on the part of the misled customers.

Re:Hang 'em high...

[FranTaylor]

What CRIMINAL FRAUD?

people were sold automobiles that were claimed to be street legal, but they are not.

Re:Hang 'em high...

[Salamander]

Yes, there is such a law. 40 CFR 86.1809-10 - Prohibition of defeat devices. So much for the "if it's legal it's wonderful" pseudo-argument.

Re:Hang 'em high...

[FranTaylor]

Which law makes them not street legal?

emissions control laws, lots and lots of them

Re:Hang 'em high...

[gman003]

18 USC section 1031 would apply if Volkswagen obtained any EPA credits or other direct gain as a result of this testing.

I skimmed through the Federal Test Procedures, and didn't find an explicit rule saying "car should be in normal operating mode", however, I did not search exhaustively, and this is a SECRET mode. It isn't a turbo switch you push, it's picking up on the exact sequence of RPMs performed during FTP. It definitely violated the intent of the EPA regulations, which were explicitly stated to be "accurately simulating real-world conditions". There is no reason for this to exist except to sell cars that violate EPA regulations, and I don't think "you didn't write a law specifically against it" should stop them from getting fined.

Re:Hang 'em high...

[drinkypoo]

We have algae that can turn cellulose grown on scrubland into a direct substitute for gasoline (butanol), we can make biofuel substitute for diesel. But there is no serious investment that way, only token efforts.

No, it's worse than that; Butamax, a holding company owned by BP and DuPont, managed to get a patent on the process for efficiently producing butanol and are now actively preventing Gevo (a GE energy ventures subsidiary) from making butanol fuel and selling it to the public, which they would like to be doing right now — on a small scale at first, but ramping up over time.

BP, some of the most evil fucks ever, and DuPont, more of the most evil fucks ever, are actively preventing us from having the best biofuel we could be burning.

Re:Hang 'em high...

[Darinbob]

If there was no consequence, I could sell you a $50,000 donkey, and claim it was a Lexus.

Re:Hang 'em high...

[Darinbob]

Legislating clean air has worked. Check out the air in Los Angles now versus 30 years ago.

Re:Hang 'em high...

[jandjmh]

Legislating clean air has worked very well, thank you. I lived in Southern California in the era before laws that forced car makers to clean up their vehicles, and the air was so full of nasty stuff the nearby coastal mountains were invisible.
The difference now is obvious and dramatic. The laws worked. I doubt the car makers would have ever done the required engineering without the legal mandate.

Re:Hang 'em high...

[no-body]

Legislating clean air has worked. Check out the air in Los Angles now versus 30 years ago.

Still ways to go - looking at the huge black clouds from diesel transport trucks going into the air at construction sites makes one wonder why this is happening. Fine dust particles staying in your lungs for good if you breathe that stuff in, which you do anyway.

The "Rolling Coal" movement is another fad going on raising questions about mental competence.

Re:Hang 'em high...

[Solandri]

For those of you who weren't around 30 years ago...

Flying into LAX, you used to descended into a brown layer of smog during final approach. From anywhere along I-10 West of L.A. or CA-60 East of L.A., except for early morning you could only see the mountains to the north a few weeks out of the year. If you lived out near Riverside or San Bernardino, the day would start off with clear air, and about noon to 2pm, a thick grey-brown layer of smog would move in and drop visibility to 5-10 miles.

I'm conservative when it comes to business, and occasionally I think AQMD errs a bit too far on the safe side. But I fully support clean air legislation.

Re:Honestly?

[Chris Johnson]

Operative words there are 'so far'. This is some Dr. Evil style stuff, intentionally being criminal on a massive scale for profit, and if Volkswagen does it and gets away with it this long, other car companies must surely ask what they have to do in order to compete in the market with this sort of monster.

Race to the bottom (in diesel cars): they ALL have to start lying like rugs and making computers that cheat on tests, as much or worse than VW was doing.

That's unfettered market capitalism, and that is what you get. Alternative is regulation and holding somebody accountable.

California investigating

[thoughtlover]

"The state of California is also investigating the emissions violations"

Oh boy are they in trouble now. I've heard they're worse than the Feds when it comes to issues like these.

Re:California investigating

[jittles]

Indeed. Even in the 80s California emissions laws kept certain models of cars from being imported, like hte Porsche 930 turbo. Hence the M491 option on the 911 (factory turbo look - a turbo car without the rear windshield wiper, or turbo script on the back end, and the NA 3.2L engine instead of the turbo charged version)

And in fact California is the very reason that manufacturers practically stopped selling diesel passenger vehicles in the United States to being with. They started coming back into style in the late 2000's after some law changes. But California has such strict emission standards that Subaru, for instance developed their PZEV technology. They entered into a compromise with the state of California so they could even have a chance to sell vehicles in the state without meeting all of the state's emission standards. The cost of that compromise with the state of California? A 15 year warranty on the emissions related parts of all PZEV vehicles.

Will other automakers sue VW?

[chill]

In October 2012 I bought a new car. it was a close decision between the VW Jetta TDI and Ford Fiesta. The slightly better highway mileage on the Jetta was the deciding factor for me.

Ford probably lost a sale because of this deception.

Re:Will other automakers sue VW?

[vux984]

Jetta TDI vs Fiesta? Yeah, you probably ended up with the much better car regardless of the outcome of this issue.

Re:Will other automakers sue VW?

[Anonymous Coward]

Honda and Ford have already been under investigation for similar emissions manipulation. For 1.6 million affected cars, Honda paid a $12.6 million fine plus $250 million in remedial costs. Ford paid a $2.5 million fine plus $3.8 million in other costs for 60000 vans (Source). The investigation into VW's manipulation is about roughly 500000 cars.

So, while I agree that these manipulations are despicable and beyond stupid, an $18 billion fine is not likely at all, and other automakers probably don't want to rock the boat too much either. This issue reminds me of smartphones that clock higher when a benchmark is running, and of graphics cards which get lower scores when you rename the benchmark executable. If only those were regulated as strictly...

Re:Will other automakers sue VW?

[turbidostato]

"They must sell different VW's in the states than here in Germany"

Exactly my view. If you look at American car forums about their opinion on European cars, be them VW, Audi, BMW or Mercedes (those make about 99% of what "European" they know about), you couldn't believe they are talking about the same cars running here. Where here you usually run any one of them 150, 200.000Km without major problems, just standard maintenance, it seems they break apart at 50.000 miles in USA! it must the weather or something...

Re:Honestly?

[Nutria]

That's unfettered market capitalism

Since when has the US and Europe had unfettered market capitalism? Hell, even in the 1800s there were all sorts of market protection laws and government grants to business.

Alternative is regulation and holding somebody accountable.

You forgot bribery and Communism.

Re:Off the roads, now!

[vux984]

They do not meet the requirements to be on the road and any use should be immediately prohibited

You realize a turn of the PREVIOUS century model T ford a meets the requirements to be on the road, and their idea of emissions control amounted to having the exhaust exit outside the vehicle instead of inside. There is a big difference between 'legal to drive on the street' and 'legal to register as a new vehicle'. And lots of cars that would NEVER EVER EVER pass modern rules for emissions, for safety, for anything are still perfectly legal to operate.

And hundreds of thosuands of vehicle owners have bought a new car, and then promptly had it retuned for performance. (One guess what that gain was at the expense of!) And in jurisidicitons where they need to get it tested periodically they'd even install switches to cut it back over for the test, to make sure they'd pass, then after exitting the test facility flip it back to fast+dirty.

Hell, you can buy aftermarket kits for this. And people 'chipping' their cars... etc, etc...

with VW ordered to repurchase all affected vehicles at original price and to pay all costs for replacement transportation until impacted drivers can obtain a US-legal alternative

Impacted drivers, by and large, probably want their TDI left exactly the way it is. TDI owners buy them for the excellent fuel efficiency and decent performance.

If there was a button in the car where they could push "better mileage, worse emissions" I'd bet most of them would have pushed it.

VW deserves to get slapped hard for this, what they did was brazen and deceptive... but lets not go off the deepend. They aren't gong to be hit for $37,000 per vehicle... at worst they'll settle for buying some extra carbon credits to offset the extra pollution they've caused, plus some punitive damages.

When called on it their response was, "well yes, the test definitions should be improved but it would be unfair to alter the standards without a few year advance notice."

Yup, gaming the testing standards is par for the course in every industry ever. And yes, the onus is on the regulatory body to change the test standards (or clarify them); and yes, a couple years lead time is both normal and the way it should be.

I hope ...

[PPH]

... Volkswagen slaps the EPA with an $18 Billion DMCA suit for reverse engineering their software.

Digging through several layers of links:

EPA and CARB uncovered the defeat device software after independent analysis by researchers at West Virginia University,

So it looks like WVU might have to bite the bullet on this one and the EPA will get off scott free. Sorry to all of you students who were hoping for your degree. After the school shuts down, maybe you can get jobs mining coal.

Many Nations

[JimSadler]

I would assume that numerous nations as well as buyers could file suit. We must not allow any company to profit by wrong doing. The fines should be several times the profits made from such a violation.

I smell a rat here... a stinking rat

[Your Average Joe]

Ford Motor Company said they would NEVER do a diesel because it is too hard to make them clean. They say the emissions alone on the powerstroke 250/350 trucks is a $4,000 bandaid to meet emissions. Here is the one sentence that makes me believe that Jane is pissed that Sally has a hotter boyfriend so she is going to dig up some dirt on Ken and show everyone that Ken got busted as a repeat offender paying for services from prostitutes... or something like this : "EPA and CARB uncovered the defeat device software after independent analysis by researchers at West Virginia University, working with the International Council on Clean Transportation, a non-governmental organization, raised questions about emissions levels, and the agencies began further investigations into the issue. "

I bet they paid to get the cars looked at, why JUST the 2.0 TDI from 2009-2015? And I bet they had to reverse engineer the CPU instructions so that is another issue in itself.

If I were a betting man I would bet there are other skeletons in the closets of other engines...

And a LOT of tuners and tweakers of the TDI chip them so they blow all the emissions when they hot rod the cars. The diesel truck guys do the same thing. Guys with turbo charged and supercharged cars do it too as well as ALL the ricer kids with Honda's or Acura's. LOL

As far as you know is incorrect.

[Brannon]

Jurisdictions_requiring_periodic_vehicle_emissions_inspections

Re:California investigating THEY BETTER BE

[superdude72]

The car's clean enough not to make the person driving it sick. If everyone drove cars that cheated on emission standards, then sure, pollution would be a lot worse. But as a percentage of cars on the road, this model is a drop in the ocean. The more serious issue if you own this car is that it could cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars to make it street legal in California. If it can be made street legal at all.

More to the point

[gzuckier]

They've just wound up and kicked their most loyal customer base in the nuts as hard as they can.
VW diesel owners are unswervingly loyal and unswervingly proud of their purchase and the VW brand, and unanimously proud of doing the right thing ecologically, so this is like finding their wife committing adultery with their dog.