VW Engineers Have Admitted Manipulating CO2 Emissions Data (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader writes: According to a report in German newspaper Bild am Sonntag several Volkswagen engineers have come forward and admitted manipulating carbon dioxide emissions data, blaming the overly ambitious goals set by former Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn. Reuters reports: "The paper said VW engineers tampered with tyre pressure and mixed diesel with their motor oil to make them use less fuel, a deception that began in 2013 and carried on until the spring of this year. 'Employees have indicated in an internal investigation that there were irregularities in ascertaining fuel consumption data. How this happened is subject to ongoing proceedings,' a Volkswagen spokesman said, declining to comment on the Bild report."

Comments

Re:No excuse for committing a crime

[PopeRatzo]

The governments set CO2 emissions requirements for vehicles that, it seems, were impossible to meet given the current technology.

Except they weren't impossible to meet given the current technology, were they?

Re:Time is money

[rmdingler]

People won't want to spend an extra hour per day commuting.

No, they don't.

At the heart of that you will locate an innate selfishness, a modern day tragedy of the commons. Most folks would rather we did things to the benefit of the environment, as long as their personal sacrifice is somewhere between minimal and nonexistent.

Where we live, there is an active market for the gear heads who trade in "delete kits" (after market parts that defeat the environmental controls).

Re: Ok to pollute because others are worse?

[TWX]

It stinks that commercial vehicles don't have to have pollution controls. A couple of months every year we have smog days and the damage caused by pollutants to our health is just shameful.

I hope I'm alive to see the end of burning in order to create energy and power.

Whatchu talkin' 'bout Willis?

Commercial vehicles have emissions rules and pollution controls. They don't happen to be the same as your passenger car, because first, there are many less commercial vehicles than there are passenger vehicles so as a whole they're already polluting less than in-total for passenger vehicles, and second, the rules for commercial vehicles are based around what the vehicle is expected to move. This applies to both passenger commercial vehicles (ie, buses) and to vehicles that move cargo or raw materials. A Class-4 tow truck or short school bus chassis will have its emissions capped at a much lower amount than a Class-6 flatbed delivery truck, which will be lower than a Class-8 over-the-road tractor trailer, or full-sized school bus, or sixteen wheel heavy dump truck.

One could extrapolate that the amount of emissions allowed per unit of work is probably comparable to your passenger car, but these commercial vehicles are doing a lot more total work.