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Volkswagen Sued For Violating State Environmental Statutes With Dieselgate (theverge.com)
The attorneys general of New York, Massachusetts, and Maryland are suing Volkswagen for violating state environmental regulations with its diesel emissions cheating scandal. The states say that the car company has violated their air quality laws, combined with some sort of anti-fraud measure for the defeat mechanisms to bypass emissions testing. The move comes after many states agreed to a $14.7 billion settlement for violating consumer protection and EPA and California state environmental regulations. The Verge reports: "Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche defrauded thousands of Massachusetts consumers, polluted our air, and damaged our environment and then, to make matters worse, plotted a massive cover-up to mislead environmental regulators," said Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey in a statement. This was echoed by New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, who released his own statement saying "the allegations against Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche reveal a culture of deeply-rooted corporate arrogance, combined with a conscious disregard for the rule of law and the protection of public health and the environment."
For blatant environmental disregard such as this, the corporation should not offer protection to the officers and directors. The corporate veil should be pierced, and the state should go after the officers and directors both criminally and civilly. The corporate protection from liability should just be there to protect against legal action arising from unforeseen circumstances in the evolution of a company. In this case, the emissions rules were purposefully disregarded and, there should be a heavy price to pay for that.
Shortly after this started, someone reported that GM, Chrysler, and Ford performed substantially-similar to Volkswagen, with the caveat that Volkswagen was more efficient: everyone's vehicles are tuned to hit emissions standards in testing conditions, and quickly increase their output as you leave those standards; Volkswagen happened to enter a different mode of behavior under testing conditions, instead of playing the wink-and-nudge.
Someone accused everyone involved of protectionism, trying to push foreign companies out in order to strengthen local manufacture. I think it's more that people are more forgiving of villains who twirl their moustaches at you while you interact, as they feel they've gotten a fairer deal when someone violates the spirit of the rules than if the terms were hammered out and the other guy just bluntly cheated. Same outcome, but one of these pisses people off.
Those of us who are more level-headed (read: introverts) tend to miss the group-think and not care as much about the other guy being a dick (because of a lack of investment in squishy feelings of companionship), and so are a little less misgiving about the guy who brazenly cheated, and a little more concerned with the rules being set up such that cheating and playing by the rules are essentially the same thing, since this implies that the rules don't work (why have them at all if breaking them doesn't actually change anything?).
So my understanding is there is a larger problem here in which everyone gets to cheat, but most people do so in an acceptable way, and this is all a bunch of feel-good measure being taken to quell people's personal feelings of unfairness, and has actually no material impact on the world. That is to say: all the stuff about polluting your air and defrauding consumers is bullshit by way of literally every alternative being both acceptable and functionally identical.
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Sure, what VW did was flaky, bad, evill, and so on. But now we are getting into the "obligitory" cash grab, none of these law suites will result in resources to address "climate change" or give VW owners more than a cupon for a Big Mac.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Please stop using the word "-gate" on any story that has some sort of scandal. Watergate was over 40 years ago....LET IT GO! and just use the word scandal.
It detects that it's running on the dynamometer. You'd have to somehow run it on an actual street to get the non-test-mode results.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
If VW willfully violated some states environmental laws, then why shouldn't those states seek redress?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The test is different - run on a specimen model of vehicle - and the pollution monitored. It's highly prescribed in terms of how it's run. This happens, then that happens, then that happens.
The software is built to detect this series of unusual speeds, consistent runs, in a predictable order, and modify its parameters.
It's the most disgusting kind of "cheat the test" mechanic, which is why they're being screwed to the wall for it. It's not a question of anything being activated, or the software going into a certain mode automatically. It's literally designed to detect the test sequence and then cut its performance on detection so that it passes the test. There is no other reason for that code to exist, and it NEVER activates during normal driving (so the test is entirely useless, yes, but also it's been gamed quite deliberately).
It goes unnoticed because there's been no retesting of vehicles after the initial certification, except your normal emissions test, which is designed to take account of older, more polluting cars. Nobody is saying the car itself isn't legal to pass emissions tests - they just committed deliberate fraud to get it classed as lower emissions vehicle than it EVER could be in normal use.
New out of the factory, it's more polluting than it ever is tested to be, even on the regular emissions tests (which are incredibly short-lived anyway), and will only get worse with time and by the time it does fail tests, you are out of warranty and they can just say it's because of how you used the vehicle or bad luck.
But on the road, under normal usage, it's giving out 20-30 times what it does on the regular emissions tests or on the specimen model tests when the model is generally assessed for taxation, etc. based on its pollution.
The test mode cuts the performance about 20%. IOW, the poor bastards bought a real POS.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
In most states, including NY, the check is simply an ODBII test. This test simply asks the car for a list of components that need to work to meet emissions and a yes/no/maybe answer for if it's working. If all things work then the car must pass emissions. This is known to be true because the EPA requires that the manufacturer write up a report that proves they tested the emissions and it meets the standards when the emissions components are working and that the computer detects and reports when the emissions components don't work.
VW's problem is they lied on the report which and actual emissions are not tested for each car.
Because other companies could not figure out how VW was doing something that seemed nearly ecomically impossible based on their own R&D into trying. I am in IT and my CIO is always telling me about some other company that is doing something cheaper and better. Often time when I reach out to my couterparts or colleges in those companies I find something much different and that neither CIO has the full story.