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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."
"Accurate communication is possible only in a non-punishing situation."
The Chief Executive set unrealistic goals and planned punishments for anyone who failed. So, the engineers did what was rational, and now they're going to get the blame for the whole thing. The executives, as usual, will get off scot-free and even if fired, will come out smelling like roses.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I own a 2015 Passat tdi. Frankly I am not worried about the nox or co2 output I make in my vehicle.
So you are saying you don't give a crap about the environment. Fair enough. I appreciate your honesty.
Diesel trucks dump far more crap and haul less people.
So the reason you don't care is because other sources of pollution are worse? That's like saying it's ok for me to dump toxins in the stream because the factory down the street pollutes more. If we accept that logic then there would be no point in any rules prohibiting pollution. Just because we haven't solved some other problem doesn't mean we shouldn't deal with the pollution coming out of your car if we can.
My carbon footprint per person is far lower than other diesel vehicles
And yet it isn't as low as it could or should be.
The Chief Executive set unrealistic goals and planned punishments for anyone who failed. So, the engineers did what was rational, and now they're going to get the blame for the whole thing.
If the engineers did something that they knew was wrong then they deserve to be blamed and punished for what they did. If someone asks you to commit a crime the answer should be an unequivocal "NO". This was not a complicated ethical situation. This is kindergarten stuff. Just because someone told you to commit a crime doesn't make it acceptable for you to go ahead and actually do it.
Nobody at VW involved in this fiasco was under any illusions that what they were doing was legal or even in a gray area. Any engineers who were involved in this fraud should be taken to court and punished in a manner commensurate with their crime. Same with any management that was in charge. They knew or should have known what was going on and deserve to be punished for this crime.
And let's not pretend that the executives didn't know what was happening. This is a company that is renowned for their centralized control and micro-managing. Any pretense that the management was not aware of this fraud is almost certainly untrue. It might not go all the way to the top but I can't imaging how some folks pretty high up the food chain didn't authorize this.
So just one week or so after the CO2 emissions scandal came to light we already have rank-and-file employees admitting fault. Contrast that with their NOx emissions scandal that has dragged on for over a month with no hints from VW about the perpetrators - that should tell you the blame there lies with executives.
At least read the summary. They also cheated on the mpg ratings.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
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).
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
The governments set CO2 emissions requirements for vehicles that, it seems, were impossible to meet given the current technology.
The emissions targets are demonstrably possible. There are cars driving on the road today which substantially exceed the CO2 emissions requirements under CAFE and similar legislation. Car companies might have to stop selling the ones that don't but that is a Good Thing.
After expending a large effort and resources on improving the technology, it was still impossible.
WRONG. The technology required for VW to meet emissions standards already exists and was available to them. They made a purely economic decision to not implement that technology in order to save money while fraudulently claiming that they had solved the problem. This was fraud in pursuit of money. Nothing more.
Cars and gasoline are not a big part of an American household's budget; you can increase the cost of driving substantially and people will still drive just as much and instead cut down on something else.
In the short run people will still have to drive. In the long run they would find alternative transportation options. You can reduce car usage by slowly ramping up the cost of fuel. Eventually people will either drive more efficient cars or alternative transportation means become economically viable like passenger rail.
To substantially change automobile usage in the US, you'd have to tax people so much that everybody becomes a lot poorer. That would work, but it probably wouldn't be popular. And what would be the point?
FALSE. You are correct that to reduce auto use you would have to tax fuel more and that it wouldn't be popular. But you are wrong that everybody becomes poorer. Europe taxes gasoline much much more than the US does and yet their standard of living is pretty similar. In response they utilize rail more and tend to drive smaller more fuel efficient cars. The point would be that the single best thing you could possibly do for the environment in the short to medium term would be to tax gasoline. Higher fuel costs force people to be more frugal with their use of it. That is a Good Thing. Now I don't think it is going to happen in the US in my lifetime but there is a point to it and the point is a good one.
Long term we have to find a way to hugely reduce our use of fossil fuels. We are literally and figuratively playing with fire by burning them for power.
In addition, "multi-billion dollar subsidies to the oil industry" are a drop in the bucket compared to the enormous subsidies "green" energy and public transportation already receive in the US.
I call bullshit on that one. 20 Seconds on Google would provide you the evidence that your statement is wrong. Fossil fuel subsidies roughly equal or even exceed renewables subsidies despite there being little economic justification for subsidizing fossil fuels.
Just to add to your point, most internal combustion engines are only 15-20% efficient, most of the energy in the fuel gets turned into heat or lost (either through friction of through other loads like the alternator, power steering etc). Even a super-duper-efficient ICE engine is only yielding 25% efficiency tops (number pulled out of thin air, but a reasonable number, nonetheless).
What this means is that engines with less controls, like a motorcycle's engine, are at the bottom end of efficiency. A Harley, for example, has that horrible 60 degree V engine which is just plain inefficient, but gives it the signature Harley sound. A car, on the other hand, can have all sorts of controls such as VVT, exhaust recirculation, etc.
Obviously it takes less energy to move less weight, but there are so many factors that need to also be considered that the argument is almost always invalid when applied to a vehicle. Aerodynamics have a much more significant impact.
STEM cells. Duh.
I spent 3 months carpooling in from West Covina to LA in the HOV lane looking at all of the cars with 1 person per car enjoying their time sitting still on the freeway. Please don't tell me that there isn't a better way.
Yeah, most of those guys were literally enjoying their time sitting still on the freeway and having some personal space.
You haven't got kids, have you. Getting some alone time is bliss! Just sitting there alone in the car for a few hours and being able to legitimately claim "I got held up in traffic"...
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
"Ulrich Hackenberg, Audi’s chief engineer, and Wolfgang Hatz .. were put in charge of research and development at the Volkswagen group shortly after Martin Winterkorn became chief executive in January 2007."