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VW Officials Knew Since Last Year of Misleading Fuel Economy Claims (reuters.com)

Posted by timothy on from the far-from-groovin' dept.

It's not just CO2 levels that Volkswagen manipulated; according to a wire story, Volkswagen officials knew at least a year ago that some of the company's officially-reported fuel-efficiency claims were overstated. From the linked article: Volkswagen's top executives knew a year ago that some of the company's cars were markedly less fuel efficient than had been officially stated, Sunday paper Bild am Sonntag reported, without specifying its sources. ... Months after becoming aware of excessive fuel consumption, former Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn decided this spring to pull one model off the market where the discrepancy was particularly pronounced, the Polo TDI BlueMotion, the paper cited sources close to Winterkorn as saying.

3 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Re:thats strange by whoever57 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    everyone I know who has a VW, or has had one in the past 10 years (around 8 or so) has all gotten BETTER than advertized MPGs.

    It's good to see VW representatives surfing Slashdot to try and repair VW's shattered reputation. :)

    Actually, this has been written about before. When the cars are in test mode, with reduced NOX emissions, the fuel economy is also worse. So real world economy (and CO2 emissions) are better than under test.

    [not associated with VW in any way. Heck, I haven't ever owned a VW]

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  2. Re: thats strange by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Except it's true, and if you had any understanding of diesel engines, you'd know this intuitively. The vw execs are saving face here. The idea the cars use more fuel than as tested is utter bullshit. What the cars fail at is producing too much NOx from running leaner in real world conditions. Leaner = less fuel = hotter combustion = less particulates and more efficient Otto cycle... at the cost of making a tiny bit more of a transient, almost insignifucant pollutant. Oh buddy.

    However, was it wring to cheat the tests? Yes. Violation of the law? Certainly.

    My 10 year old TDI routinely beats EPA rated mileage, even when I speed. What it does poorly at is during stop and go city driving (about 35 mpg with my lead foot), but it excells at highway driving. 42 MPG while averaging 85 MPH? All day long--and that's the one time it'll actually sink to EPA levels in non-combined use.

  3. that's strange - everygets one worse than official by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Interesting

    everyone I know who has a VW, or has had one in the past 10 years (around 8 or so) has all gotten BETTER than advertized MPGs.

    Its funny, maybe it is a US vs Europe thing but I've never known anyone get anything near the official MPG. There is an interesting paper from the European Federation for Transport and Environment which shows that the average difference is now 36%, and that despite real world MPG scarecly improving since 2012 the manufacturers claims continued to reduce. Strangely VW is far from the worst, being bang on average with a difference of 36% from real world figures, whereas Daimler manages a 48% difference.