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Volkswagen To Pay $10.2 Billion In Emissions Lawsuit (bbc.co.uk)
Reader Khashishi writes: Slashdot has been following the story of Volkswagen manipulating diesel emissions tests for some time now. The control software contained algorithms which reduced emissions during testing but not during normal driving. Well, now Volkswagen has agreed to pay $10.2 billion (alternate source: BBC) to settle the case, according to Associated Press. This is higher than the $430 million damages estimated in this story. It appears that vehicle owners will have the choice of fixing their cars or selling them back. Most of the money will go towards fixing the cars, buying them back, and compensating owners.
Straight money costs to companies are wrong. They effect the economic viability of companies and put jobs, and economies at risk while costing consumers.
A better approach would be a forced share dilution of significant proportion, 10,25 or 50% or more. This would not impact the economic viability of the company and would affect the value held by those supposedly actually in control of the company, the shareholders and the executives with share values.
It would then be up to the government who then owned the new shares to decide to immediately sell and drop the share price or hold on for higher value later.
The government would get money. There would be a punishment on the company, but the basic operation of the company would be lower.
Got a 2012 GTI, was driving a week ago, go to push the brakes and nothing. The brake booster had catastrophically failed. Go around one turn, brakes worked fine, next, almost nothing. Push on the brakes real hard, a little stopping and apparently brake fluid squirted out onto the engine block and smoke starts pouring out from under the hood. And as the warning in the manual said "Operating the vehicle without the brake booster can greatly increase the chance of accident and serious injury". Now I get that parts fail, but you'd kind of think something worth writing a warning about in the manual would be deserving of a warning light, but no. The car doesn't even have the ability to detect the booster failed. And the cherry on top of the shit cake that is VW design, the drive train is still under warranty, but the central braking system is covered under the shortest warranty on the car. Because why would you warranty the most important safety feature in the vehicle for any decent amount of time.
Yeah design a vehicle where the brakes fail in a very detectable way and not bother warning you that your brakes will no longer function the way you're used to. Fuck them.
I have a VW diesel and I'm not doing a damn thing to "fix" this "issue".
I certainly won't service my car @ the dealer anymore, ever. I'm concerned they'll slip some "fix" into my car's computer without my consent.
BP payed more... but not much more for doing far more damage!
Wasn't their settlement about $20 billion?
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