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Estimating Damages From the VW Emissions Scandal (acs.org)
ckwu writes: Last year, the news broke that in the U.S. almost 600,000 Volkswagen diesel vehicles, model years 2009 to 2015, contain software that altered engine performance and lowered emissions of toxic nitrogen oxides (NOx) during emissions tests but not during normal driving. A new study calculates the societal impact of this extra NOx: 46 excess expected deaths and $430 million in excess damages. U.S. regulators have filed a federal lawsuit against the automaker alleging violations of the Clean Air Act.
Since VW diesel is much more common in the EU, imagine what harm the German manufacturer caused there. Unfortunately I doubt the EU is going to stand up to the lying German corporations, since they fund a lot of the EU activities. So much for the myth of high quality German engineering and standards.
These figures remind me of software metrics. Management loves them and thinks it lets them put a dollar (and lives) figure on some random event, but in all reality they are meaningless, constructed from a formula pulled out of some overpaid consultant's arsehole.
Well, let's see... the damage includes all the tornado damage in Texas from December 26, the water crisis in Flint, starving kids in China, all those dying animals found on the ASPCA beg-a-thon infomercials, and Trump's hair. Might as well throw the housing market debacle in there as well.
Not to mention, CO2 is not a pollutant. However other things emitted from fossil fuels are - such as benzene, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, heavy metals, petro coke etc. All of which are ignored by climate white knights.
They passed the test.
It's obvious the test is/was broken!
Rick B.
Did the study take into account lower CO2 emissions enabled by he device or the number of deaths that would have been caused by lower horsepower engines not merging as quickly? No, of course not.
However, we have but to look to the GM side saddle fuel tanks, the Ford Pinto IED, and the Toyota floor mat auto pilot feature to realize the buying public has the attention span of a fruit fly.
So yes, a rather large fine is in order.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Since VW diesel is much more common in the EU, imagine what harm the German manufacturer caused there. {...} So much for the myth of high quality German engineering and standards.
Except that VW is far from the only existing car manufacturer.
And lots of them are NOT in the EU.
If the first caught lying happened to be Japanese, you would be saying "So much for the myth of Japanese technological innovation."
What, you expected VW to be the only one lying ? They just happen to have been the first caught doing it.
Car manufacturer and lying is a redundancy.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
What a joke. Yes, they emitted more than they were legally entitled to. For comparison's sake, look at India where just one of the 40 year old buses spewing black smoke is emitting thousands times more pollutants than a VW car, and then think that India has millions of these vehicles on the road. And then multiply that times all of the other 3rd world countries that don't give a hoot about vehicle emissions.
We do stuff. Leave us alone. It's for Your Own Good (TM).
And the Invisible Hand.
Religious nutjobs.
Well, all it seems to be good for, this pseudo scandal, is to create extra money and expenses, so accountants, lawyers, etc in bureaucracy.
So if you have to work with your hands, or actually use materials to create a work, you can wait until some money trickles down the tree to you, which will be in about 25 to 35 years.
oh yeah, it also helps to keep the pleebs buzy, reading this gobledigoock, and offcourse gives the reporters some meaningful thing to waste their oh so precious time on.
it's really time to nuke this place from orbit, and then throw away the ashes.
WdW
Here's the reason why I want a full refund. I traded in my 4x4 because my commute to work increased from 30 miles/day to 105 miles /day. A TDI was a perfect match for it. Now keep in mind a new TDI requires more maintenance but the high efficiency more than compensates for it. I purchased my TDi new on 5/18/2015 completely loaded with a 400w Fender Stereo, RNS510 NAV/head unit, dual climate control, power sunroof, black VTEX interior, halon projector headlights. averaging 62mpg for long road trips (300 miles), 56mpg moderate road trips (120 miles) and 48 mpg for my commute to work during rush hour. awesome.
I am not requesting a refund because I'm looking for a handout. I am because the fix will reduce efficiency and performance. I don't know if any of you test drove a new TDI, they perform well the way they are configured. The car is quick. Lots of torque. If the car didn't perform the way it did then I would not have bought it.
Once the fix is available I will be forced to comply and get it done or the DMV will not allow the car on the road. So.. I want a refund.
The German manufacture lied. I joined a group action lawsuit through the Pulanski Law firm. VW committed fraud. The dealership committed Negligent Misrepresentation of the vehicle. VW did not design the defeat device... Bosch wrote the code as a diagnostic feature and warned VW to not implement the feature.
A LNT emissions system that has a DPF is rated for 120k miles. A LNT system basically incinerates soot that is collected in the LNT to ash. Ash is stored and eventually the LNT system needs to be replaced. If the LNT system is on more often than it is currently (DPF regen averages 1 in every 600 miles) then the DPS would need to be replaced more often. A DPF is not cheap and it's a pain in the ass to replace since the floor pan needs to be dropped!
I think the government needs to stand in line. VW TDI owners are the ones that are screwed. We will be forced to comply with the recall once a fix is avaialble and the car will not be the same. This is one of the reasons why CARB and the EPA rejected the fix that was just submitted. The only way VW can recover is
if the current vehicles on the road are grandfathered in. I do not think they will since a 2.0 TDI emits more NOx than a Semi Truck. High NOx is a product of a lean diesel burn. A catalytic converter large enough to reduce NOx would be much larger than what the space available to install it.
Even the 2.0 TDI with addblue FAILS NOx emissions.
I'm not a friggen do gooder. Basically I didn't want to pay $600/month for fuel to commute to work. I went from 18mpg to 48mpg
I miss my Wragnler LOL and now I am working closer to home again. Hopefully I'll be able to free up the money I used to buy my TDI, get a refund and buy
a new Rubicon.
Did they just loo at the total cars and assume nobody would have bought that car? Or did they calculate the difference of what was advertised and what was reality?
In Belgium when asked, people did not really care and would buy the car anyway. Having a sunroof or not is more important.
That said: as they did pas the test, is not the test what has failed? It is like using a ping test to see if a website is up and running.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
The damages are not enough. We must strive to destroy nature as soon as possible. Nature is evil. The sooner we destroy it, the sooner Humanity is forced to shoot people into space and pour all money and resources into it. Also, seeing Hippies and greentards cry and rage is satisfying and induces happiness in me.
I shall do my part, and eat beans every day. They say methane is among the most potent greenhouse gases. Well i shall contribute by farting more and more methane into the skies.
I shall also include trees in my bean diet. Destroy trees, fart out methane. My just and lawful scheme shall see the end of filthy disgusting nature. Nature is evil as evidenced by the prevailing colors of green and brown, snot and shit respectively. I must also study some engineering to learn to destroy nature more efficiently.
There are no damages without a victim. Find the 46 people that are certainly going to die as a result of this, and they will have standing to sue.
You cannot sue over damages that might statistically occur to unknown individuals.
I bet you like systemd
There is a law that says you can't change the law in a way it adversely affects you restrospectively. That is the principle under which some old products are exempted from food labeling, ingredient disclosure requirements, and the rule under which coal power plants operate under older pollution standards. So the affected citizen can claim "the new law can not take away my right to sue VW retrospectively". But VW is safe there too. The claim has to be adjudicated by the Roberts court. There is no court in the world that is more friendly than Roberts' court for Corporations, who are people. So all bases are covered.
But still there are some appeals courts and district courts that show autonomy. The issue will soon be fixed by TPP. Corportate lawyers will form arbitration boards and hear complaints argued by other corporate lawyers, who would be sitting as arbitrators in other proceedings where these arbitrators will be pleading for their clients. It is all chummy-chummy clubby atmosphere with lots of give and take. The arbitrators give tax payer funds and the corporations take it.
So let us all look forward to this brave new world.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
That's only 3,200 less than the number of aborted babies each day in the US.
Talk about flawed software. They need to have software that will estimate at least 4,600 deaths before they'll get anywhere with the progs.
Nah. It will probably be business as usual.
You know that "Tipper point" with GLOBAL WARMING that Al Gore's always going on about?
Well VW's lying diesels pushed us right over the point of no return. We're all FUCKED now, nothing we can do.
Thanks VW.
A lot of people think the defeat device (software) was put in place to pass emissions because it improved fuel economy and allowed VW to sell more cars. This is not entirely true. The defeat device was put in place to save VW money. How, you may ask? It's all a numbers game.
To run the vehicle under the settings that comply with emissions standards, the diesel engine has to run at a higher temperature and at higher pressures. Running at a higher temperature and pressure allows the engine to perform a more complete combustion of the diesel fuel, thus reducing the amount of unburnt fuel and particulate in the exhaust, but increasing the amount of NOx in the exhaust as the atmospheric N2 and O2 readily combines under these conditions. This is where the additive (urea) that is sprayed into the exhaust does the job of taking NOx and coverting it to ammonia and water.
So where is the numbers in this game?
Running the engine under these settings means that there is a much smaller margin in which these engines can reliably operate. Minor manufacturing inconsistencies can become outright failures and require expensive warranty repair or replacement. By altering the specs so the vehicle falls out of emission standards but still within performance specs, the number of warranty issues decreases significantly. Once the vehicle is out of warranty, the dealership can then apply the emission-compliant firmware and any issues with the engine from that point onward are the responsibility of the owner. It's win-win for the manufacturer and dealership at that point.
The issue with some of the older models being expensive to repair to meet compliance has to do with the variable dimension fuel injectors that can be found in the later model TDI engines. The older engines would require the injectors to be replaced in order to come into compliance.
"the societal impact of this extra NOx: 46 excess expected deaths and $430 million in excess damages."
Let me guess - these numbers were output by a computer model and can't be verified (and, no, you cannot see the source code).
This pretty much sums things up: https://i.imgflip.com/xkboe.jpg
They poisoned the water and for months, covered up the problem. But no one will be fined, no one will go to jail, and probably, no one will ever fix the issue. Meanwhile your taxes will then go to supporting kids with crippling brain damage as a result. So the governor could pocket a few bucks.
The point is: what VW did is no different from what anybody else is doing -- we're all screwing each other for a few bucks. Why is one bad while the other is not bad?
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
My only concern about this scandal was whether it would be bad enough to bring down the price of the used Audi A7. Regrettably, this scandal was not damaging enough to place the A7 within my budget. :-(
And this comes from the land of the Coal Rollers....
Nope. No one lies like VW has.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...
No. There are just :
- either those who got caught lying
- or those who didn't yet.
(And maybe a couple few exceptions in the middle who forgot that they could be lying).
"But they all do it" is not an excuse.
"But they all do it"
- DOES NOT mean that it should be considered normal
- DOES MEAN that you can't just single out the random one which by (lack of) chance happen to have been caught. You can't consider VW, or all german manufacturer worse than everybody else. They are not worse than everybody, but nearly everybody is just as bad as them.
Or in more practictal terms:
- As VW got caught red-handed, you shouldn't be just pointing fingers at them, and vilify them and consider them as the worst ever.
- You should instead go in panick mode and try to investigate ALL THE OTHERS AS FAST AS POSSIBLE, because it's almost a certainty they have been cheating (but just had the luck of not being discovered yet) and you need to find out fast, before they've had the time to cover their arses.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
46 excess expected deaths / 320,000,000 US population
in other words they guessed. The lack of error bars, the data points less than the noise floor, Report by a NGO nonprofit based on a paywalled paper, yup all of the warning signs are there.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Really? I suppose this is from people running their cars in their garage? I don't believe it.
What were the names of these 46 people?
VW may have cheated, but the actual damage is limited. The cars still perform well, get better mileage and power than a compliant vehicle, and do comply with the arbitrary standards from a few short years ago. What this is really about is a US Federal regulator exacting a pound of flesh in the form of hefty fines, none of which will go to VW owners, and even if a small amount does directly or indirectly, this is manly a US money grab for the government and its agenda separate from clean air, citizens or any form of justice.
Just review the many fines they have issued in the past 7 years and where the money actually went. DC.
CAFE standards have cost the lives of between 41,600 to 124,800 people. VW are strictly amateurs compared to the US government.
It's also somewhat dishonest to count the number of deaths due to additional NOx, but not subtract the deaths 'saved' by being below limits for other pollutants. I haven't done the math, mainly due to lack of data, but I would be surprised if the cars would emitted exhaust gases just within CARB limits for all pollutants, all the time, they would have caused at least one order of magnitude more theoretical deaths.
BULLSHIT.
Even scumbags should be considered innocent until proven guilty. That does not mean we should not keep a watchful eye on others who are likely to commit similar crimes, but we cannot presume their guilt.
Yup, I never say we should immediately punish every single car manufacturer out there, just because VW was found guilty.
That's why I said:
You should instead go in panick mode and try to investigate ALL THE OTHERS AS FAST AS POSSIBLE, because it's almost a certainty they have been cheating (but just had the luck of not being discovered yet) and you need to find out fast, before they've had the time to cover their arses.
I was speaking about investigating fast before the tracks are covered. Not about fining them without even having found out if they are actually guilty (they are very likely to be, but you need formal proof before sending fine).
Also, keep in mind that the should be considered innocent until proven guilty mainly concerns legal proceedings: you can't punish someone without having proper confirmation that they were guilty in the first place.
That has a lot less to do with dictating with general behaviour and prudence.
Speaking of sayings, there another one going : fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
As we have been repeatedly abused by the whole auto industry (car manufacturer, car dealers, auto repair shops, etc.), one would really need to be a complete fool not to have any suspicion about the current diesel pollution scandal.
It's one thing not to go in "lynch mob" mode and not to punish a person based only on hear-say and suspicion,
it's another thing not be a little bit prudent around confirmed repeat offenders.
And to go back to the reason I entered the thread:
- Could you all people please stop to single out VW as the only evil brand in the land of innocent white lambs ?
(when probably every single last one of them is probably as evil as them anyway)
(maybe except Tesla. Not that they are holier than anyone else. They just don't produce internal combustion engines, so they don't get the chance to lie about them).
- Or stop repeating that the reputation of superior german engineering is overrated now suddenly all just because VQ got caught doing what probably every thing else is doing ? (The fact that everybody is probably lying about pollution, doesn't change the tendency of germans usually being good at engineering designs). (Or in other words, German design wasn't wrongfully consider better because VW was lying. German design tend to be more often praised due to some technical merits and 1 single German company happen to have been caught cheating with pollution).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Why are we still discussing the misdoings of VW? The long haul tractor trailer based industry has barely any emissions restrictions to deal with. With thousands over thousands of trucks carrying goods across the country the question to discuss is how to drastically reduce this insanity by moving more freight to rail and putting clean engines into the trucks that are still needed. The few dirty Golfs are almost negligible compared to the poison and sud spewing out of the pipes of trucks every single minute. I guess it is much easier to keep beating up an easy target rather than start with something that would have real impact!
We went to trade in our 2009 Jetta gasoline car and found out that in the previous month KBB (Kelly Blue Book) http://www.kbb.com/ had dropped the trade in value from $6500 to $4000 in one month from this. It had nothing to do with diesel. I've personally lost $2500 to these assholes and will never buy another VW, let alone a diesel VW.