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London's Mayor Wants Volkswagen To Pay $3 Million In Lost Tolls (citiesofthefuture.eu)
dkatana writes: Since the U.K. government has done nothing to make Volkswagen pay for Dieselgate, Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, is asking VW to come up with 2.5 million pounds ($3 million) to compensate the city and its residents for the 80,000 diesel cars fitted with cheat devices. "I want to see a proper commitment from them [VW] to fully compensate the thousands of Londoners who bought Volkswagen cars in good faith, but whose diesel engines are now contributing to London's killer air."
The money will be used to fund a new air-quality program for London's schoolchildren, and Mayor Khan is also asking the government to create "a national diesel scrappage" program to help replace vehicles.
The money will be used to fund a new air-quality program for London's schoolchildren, and Mayor Khan is also asking the government to create "a national diesel scrappage" program to help replace vehicles.
The tolls were for entering London in a vehicle that pollutes a lot. They weren't paid because VW diesels "don't pollute a lot". Now it turns out that they do, so they're asking VW to pay, since the customers who would normally owe the tolls bought the cars in good faith thinking that they would be able to enter London without paying the toll.
Government official wants money he didn't earn. Says he has good reason why he should be allowed to spend it on his priorities.
More like "government official wants money owed to government because of Volkswagen's deceitful practices." When you're a city with a polluter-toll, and you have a car company lying about their emissions causing consumers to unwittingly increase pollution while not paying said-tolls, I think it's safe to say there are damages. I think the government can spend the money however they see fit. What, would you prefer them to send a bill to the drivers of the vehicles? To me, this is the most legitimate and reasonable money-grab I've seen throughout the VW debacle.
No it's not. The mayor is trying to work in the best interests of his citizens and punish a criminal company that lied.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
it should be paid by the executives who ordered the deceit. If it is paid by the company then future generations of execs will play similar tricks, they will know that it will not hurt them although it might hurt their company — and they can always get another job if the company folds. If their own house is at risk they will be scrupulously honest.
This is the only route to corporate good behaviour, be that: car manufacturers; banks; energy companies; ... NB: I am not talking about mistakes but deceit.
Your post doesn't have any actual argument in it excpt for the implicit one that this has come from the government therefore it must be bad. Government == bad is not actually a fact, though if you treat it as an axiom you can come to all sorts of odd conclusions.
London has a pollution/air quality problem. The local government tries to improv things by providing incentives and levying taxes. That is a pretty reasonable way of carrying on with things. Except that volkswagen gave themsalves a comptitive advantage by a massive amount of lying, and caused a lot of extra pollution.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
This is what is called a strawman argument. Yes, I agree it would be terrible if this official got to keep that $3 million dollars personally.
But the actual situation is pretty straightforward. You're allowed to drive your old, dirty car into the city as long as you pay a little bit extra per trip to offset the costs you're imposing on everyone else. In this case that means the people driving VWs into the city should have paid, but they only were in that situation because VW cheated them. Under the circumstances, asking VW to pony up $3 million to pay their customers fees isn't exactly draconian; after all VW had no difficulty in paying the outgoing CEO who oversaw this mess a $6.26 million dollar performance bonus after all the came out.
Now if it were up to me, dirty cars would be completely banned, and the officials and engineers of a company that cheats would go to jail.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well, I can see each individual's liability - they drove a car that pollutes into the centre of London and are therefore liable for a fee. VW's liability is there to each individual since their false advertising made them liable for the fee. London are just trying to cut out the middle man.
They don't work as expected (well, they work the way that a few people in VW expected - privately - but that's not the same thing). The expectation is what was advertised - low emissions. If they are sold as low emission cars and they are not low emission cars then they are clearly defective. You might not particularly care about the defect but that doesn't eliminate the defect.