Volkswagen Closes In on $4.3 Billion US Settlement in Diesel Scandal (bloomberg.com)

Volkswagen said it's closing in on a deal with U.S. authorities on a $4.3 billion settlement to resolve civil and criminal allegations stemming from its emissions-cheating scandal. From a report on Bloomberg: The agreement, which has yet to be finalized, would lead to a financial expense that exceeds current provisions, the German automaker said. It also includes a guilty plea to some criminal charges, strengthening compliance systems and installing an independent monitor for three years, the Wolfsburg, Germany-based automaker said Tuesday in a statement. VW's management and supervisory boards are scheduled to review the settlement today or Wednesday and may raise provisions related to the scandal, which currently total 18.2 billion euros ($19.2 billion). A final agreement also needs to be approved by U.S. courts. The U.S. Justice Department declined to comment on Volkswagen's statement.

Comments

double standards

[Avarist]

So will anyone complain about the US targeting European companies for cash, or is that only allowed when it's the EU that does it?

Re:double standards

[Joce640k]

Only allowed when the EU targets a USA company.

Don't look at me, I don't make the rules!

Re:double standards

[plague911]

Actually the EU already is after their blood money from VW.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/vw-faces-eu-push-for-fines-in-20-member-states-2016-09-05

As such I doubt that anyone would consider this an unfair targeting of VW.

Re:double standards

[serviscope_minor]

Actually the EU already is after their blood money from VW

Well, the OP was complaining that whenever the EU goes after a US company, there are scores of complaints about how the EU is punishing American business for being American. This way round, there are always far fewer complaints for some reason, i.e. none.

It's indicitave of a double standard, not some fault on the part of the EU or the US.

Re:double standards

[plague911]

I am sure there are dead enders on this, but the complaints come in when one of two things happen.

1) The EU targets a US company but the US deems their behavior acceptable

2) The EU targets a US company but lets similar behavior by non-US companies slide.

The former is the most common issue.

Re:double standards

[hey!]

In other words he's complaining about people complaining. And there's always people complaining.

Re:double standards

[David_Hart]

Actually the EU already is after their blood money from VW

Well, the OP was complaining that whenever the EU goes after a US company, there are scores of complaints about how the EU is punishing American business for being American. This way round, there are always far fewer complaints for some reason, i.e. none.

It's indicitave of a double standard, not some fault on the part of the EU or the US.

No... It would be a double standard if the US went after an EU company for no good reason and no one complained.

In this case VW actually did something wrong. Or did you forget that they deliberately programmed their cars to cheat their way past emissions tests and breaking numerous laws while doing so?

Re:double standards

[serviscope_minor]

No... It would be a double standard if the US went after an EU company for no good reason and no one complained.

No, that's not right. People here complain when the EU goes after US companies for a perfectly good reason but those same people don't complain when the US goes after EU compaines for a perfectly good reason. That;s double standards.

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean? The US treats everyone equally. The total cost of dieselgate to VW is only 500x as much as what General Motors had to pay when they did the same thing with a similar number of cars.

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

The double standard lies in the fact that the US is making VW pay many billions and that they are intentionally trying to damage their reputation while they offered US-based competitors far lower settlements in comparable cases and didn't even prosecute at all in the majority of cases where US manufacturers were caught cheating.

Re:double standards

[ShanghaiBill]

Only allowed when the EU targets a USA company.

This situation is not quite the same as the EU targeting Google or Facebook.
1. VW clearly broke the law.
2. Their actions were illegal in both the US and the EU.
3. VW employs a lot of people in America, and has a big factory in Chattanooga, TN.
When the EU goes after American tech companies it is for questionable infractions about some BS European censorship issue like "the right to be forgotten" or a random user expressing unpopular historical opinions, or maybe a photo of some chick wearing a burkini on a French beach. Americans care much less about what people wear, and even less about what they say.

Re:double standards

[MightyMartian]

By "blood money", you mean a settlement for Volkswagen breaking EU law, unless you believe companies should be able to wantonly violate the laws of jurisdictions in which they operate, and that any attempt by that jurisdiction to penalize or recover costs is somehow "blood money".

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that procedure will lead to much. Most experts agree none of the manufacturers caught cheating in Europe (which is, essentially, all of them) actually broke a law due to huge loopholes in the legal requirements.

As such I doubt that anyone would consider this an unfair targeting of VW.

I do. Until the US starts applying the same treatment to American companies that circumvent regulations, there is little reason to think otherwise.

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't think of a single case of (2). Dieselgate, however, is a prime example of the opposite.

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

The double standard lies in the fact that the US is making VW pay many billions and that they are intentionally trying to damage their reputation while they offered US-based competitors far lower settlements in comparable cases and didn't even prosecute at all in the majority of cases where US manufacturers were caught cheating.

It's not just the US. There seem to be a number of other manufacturers worldwide who just aren't being followed up on. With one exception I believe I know of, probably almost all the car manufacturers are guilty here. Might not be a bad idea to fine them all.

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

1. So did Google and Facebook
2. Not sure about US laws here but from what I can tell Google and Facebook tends to break them on a regular basis.
3. And Google and Facebook employs people in the EU.

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure there are dead enders on this, but the complaints come in when one of two things happen.

1) The EU targets a US company but the US deems their behavior acceptable

2) The EU targets a US company for which no viable EU competitor exists to be a hypothetical target, and boasts of the lack of incidents among nonexistent companies as bogus evidence of a trend of compliance among happy Europeans which we now see is dead wrong

FTFY

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

The EPA hit several American companies hard when they did the exact same thing as VW in '98.
http://jalopnik.com/how-the-epa-won-1-billion-from-diesel-cheaters-long-be-1732109485

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Not nearly as hard as they are hitting VW. Moreover, the majority of the truck makers fined in 1998 were European, not American.

Re:double standards

[AmiMoJo]

Hmm, seems pretty similar to me.

1. Google/Facebook clearly broke the (privacy) law.
2. Their actions were illegal in the EU, but not the US.
3. Google/Facebook employs a lot of people in the EU, and has offices in most EU member states.

So only really 2 is very different, and it's completely irrelevant anyway.

BS European censorship issue like "the right to be forgotten"

You mean our strong privacy protections that Americans should be jealous of?

Re:double standards

[MachineShedFred]

Or, it's indicative of Volkswagen AG breaking laws in both the US and the EU, and both governments going for their pound (or more) of flesh over blatantly violating laws and conspiracy to defraud customers and regulators.

They fucked up. They know they fucked up. Everyone knows they fucked up. And, they fucked up in a fashion that could still do lasting damage to the company for decades to come. There's no double standard to be seen here.

Re:double standards

[MachineShedFred]

[Citation Needed]

Show proof that all but one "that you believe you know of" are installing defeat devices in their vehicles to cheat emissions testing, especially now that the testing labs know what behavior to look for after the biggest auto maker in the world got caught and very publicly shamed for it.

Don't worry, I won't hold my breath waiting for your evidence of such claims.

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you mean like when the EPA fined and forced the recall of cars and trucks from GM, Ford, Caterpillar, Cummins, Detroit Diesel, and Mack for various schemes of electronically disabling emissions controls under circumstances not seen during testing?

Don't you look like a fucking idiot now.

Re: double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares.

VW cars are BUTT UGLY.

It hurts my eyes to see pieces of shit zooming around town.

So what if it's reliable or fast or what ever. Seeing fast shit or shit that stays there forever is still horrible.

Making BUTT UGLY cars should be illegal.

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you mean like when the EPA fined and forced the recall of cars and trucks from GM, Ford, Caterpillar, Cummins, Detroit Diesel, and Mack for various schemes of electronically disabling emissions controls under circumstances not seen during testing? [wikipedia.org]

What part of 'the same treatment ' don't you understand? The settlement forced upon all the truck manufacturers together (quite a few of which foreign-owned) was less than a twentieth of what they are currently plundering from VW and there was nothing like the current endless stream of negative publicity and exaggerated claims spread out over the media by various US agencies.

Don't you look like a fucking idiot now.

Nope, but you still do. Nothing as sad as someone who is both arrogant and wrong.

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

I do knot know what GP believes or knows, but one would have to be have been living under a rock for the past one and a half years not to know that the use of defeat devices is very widespread in the industry. Some reports and articles easily found with your favourite search engine:

The emissions test defeat device problem in Europe is not about VW
Dieselgate At GM? Defeat Devices Claimed To Be Found In Opel Cars
Test of Fiat diesel model shows irregular emissions: Bild am Sonntag
Report on France’s Renault emissions probe omitted crucial details
French government ordered to hand over full details of Renault emissions study
PSA Group Raided by French Fraud Office in Emissions Probe
Nissan faces suit over alleged emission fraud
#Dieselgate continues: new cheating techniques
RDW emission test programme - Results of indicative tests for the presence of an unauthorised defeat device
VW, Daimler, Nissan, Mitsubishi, GM: Can We Finally Agree That Dieselgate Is An Industry Problem?
Revealed: nearly all new diesel cars exceed official pollution limits
Many car brands emit more pollution than Volkswagen, report finds

Defeat devices are hardly a recent phenomenon:
How Common Are EPA “Defeat Devices” In The Auto Industry?
Carmaker Cheating on Emissions Almost as Old as Pollution Tests

There are different ways to cheat, too:
`Shameful' Mitsubishi Fraud Risks Pushing Carmaker to Brink
This is the world now: Suzuki also admits to cheating on fuel-economy tests

It's not hard to find more. Pretty much every manufacturer cheats or has cheated in one way or another.

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, it's indicative of Volkswagen AG breaking laws in both the US and the EU, and both governments going for their pound (or more) of flesh over blatantly violating laws and conspiracy to defraud customers and regulators.

While there are criminal investigations one some VW employees, there is no indication as of yet that Volkswagen as a company broke any laws in Europe. They do not claim to have violated any laws and they have not been indicted.

They fucked up. They know they fucked up. Everyone knows they fucked up. And, they fucked up in a fashion that could still do lasting damage to the company for decades to come. There's no double standard to be seen here.

The double standard lies in the fact that the world's largest polluter is treating Volkswagen as though they have committed the worst crimes in the history of mankind and are stealing billions of Euros in dubious legal proceedings paired with a constant stream of damning press releases and statements, while US companies who have done far worse things time and again are being treated with silk gloves by comparison.

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose you may have already found out about this one.

Re:double standards

[Coren22]

Apple's Double Irish that is used by many European companies?

Re:double standards

[Coren22]

My guess was that the one that he knows of would be Tesla, as the car has no meaningful emissions to be concerned with.

Re:double standards

[Coren22]

The double standard lies in the fact that the world's largest polluter is treating Volkswagen as though they have committed the worst crimes in the history of mankind and are stealing billions of Euros in dubious legal proceedings paired with a constant stream of damning press releases and statements, while US companies who have done far worse things time and again are being treated with silk gloves by comparison.

When did China go after VW?

Re:double standards

[Coren22]

Is it harder when you consider that VW sells far more diesel vehichles than the other manufacturers?

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't, as far as I am aware. However, the world's largest polluter, the United States government, did, in a most disproportionate way, as you probably know if you are replying on this page.

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not aware of any European companies that cheated the tax in the way Apple did and got away with it. Moreover, Apple wasn't even fined - they only have to pay the taxes they had been dodging for the past ten years.

Re:double standards

[Coren22]

World's largest polluter in what?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

According to this, China is the top of the pile for CO2. The US environmental regulations have caused us to have very clean air and water, where China has no regulation and pollutes their land air and water to the point where people are dying from it. But I guess you don't care about facts and figures and work more off your gut?

Here's another article about it:

http://www.activesustainabilit...

You don't see people walking around with dust masks on in the US, but I am sure you already knew that.

For fine particulates, China is still pretty bad, though Saudi Arabia surpasses them there. Likely it is due to the desert there though.

https://qz.com/794542/air-poll...

Most polluted cities, US not even on the list anywhere:

http://www.politifact.com/trut...

As far as disproportionate, not really. VW has more diesels on the roads in the US than any other car manufacturer. The impact is more for this issue than other diesel manufacturers who were also fined steeply. Considering the EU feels it can fine Apple for paying the taxes they owe in Ireland, I am not sure how you think this fine is somehow disproportionate.

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

I fail to see how any of that refute the fact that the United States government is the world's single largest polluter. You can spout country-wide CO2 emissions numbers, air quality statistics and lists of polluted cities as much as you want, but the fact remains that no single organisation pollutes as much as the US government.

As far as disproportionate, not really. VW has more diesels on the roads in the US than any other car manufacturer. The impact is more for this issue than other diesel manufacturers who were also fined steeply.

If you were to argue that the number cars affected by the defeat device were relevant, I would be on board, but I do not see how the total number of VW diesel cars on the road in the US would be relevant. Moreover, other diesel manufacturers were not fined nearly as steeply and the various involved US government agencies did not became drama queens to the same extent. Worse: when General Motors cheated with carbon monoxide emissions (which I hope I do not need to tell you are much, much worse than NOx) in 500 000 cars, they got away with a $45 million slap on the wrist and instead of frequent press releases from various branches of the US government highlighting what a terrible crime it was, the news was buried somewhere deep in the back pages.

However, my objections to the hugely over-the-top fines and the absurd behaviour of US officials are more fundamental. While the affected engines did violate applicable regulations, they are still very clean compared to the average car on US roads and even to a hypothetical car that emits the maximum amount of all regulated exhaust gas components. Even if you are willing to argue there was a net negative effect on air quality, it was negligible. Moreover, while the few people who conceived the cheat and misled officials and investigators really misbehaved, the company at large was not aware and never knowingly sold cars with illegal software. Shortly after Wolfsburg found out, they pulled cars with the affected engine off the market. Of course, the people who did it should be prosecuted and punished justly in the relevant jurisdiction, but I do not think it is fair to punish VW as a company. The behaviour was not known to or approved by the board, the shareholders and the overwhelming majority of personnel.

The size of the fines, paired with the huge costs due to the unreasonable demands from the US EPA and CARB and their unwillingness to work towards a solution is totally uncalled for. It's always bad when a non-US company is shaken down to fund the coffers of the world's bully, but this is has really gone too far even compared to previous US shakedowns and the constant stream of accusations and exaggerations has only made it worse. This case has cost the US a lot of its remaining bit of goodwill.

Considering the EU feels it can fine Apple for paying the taxes they owe in Ireland

Really? Then why haven't they done that? How do you know the EU 'feels' things they have not said? So far, they have only ordered Ireland to collect the taxes Apple dodged in the past ten years. No fines and no payments to the EU.

I am not sure how you think this fine is somehow disproportionate.

I already explained above why this fine and the previous settlement are disproportionate to an extent not seen before, but could you explain to me the how the supposed relationship between Apple's tax dodging and US regulatory overreach regarding Dieselgate works?

Re:double standards

[Coren22]

So in short, you have nothing that refutes what I stated and are instead stuck with your feels. Good to see that your feels tell you things that aren't true though, I am sure that will help you in the long run.

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad to hear that you don't let facts get in the way of your beliefs. I am not so sure about the fact that your projecting your own shortcomings on others, though. I fear that that is not a sign of a healthy state of mind. Do get it examined if it keeps happening!

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. The amount VW paid per vehicle is much larger than the truck makers paid.

Re:double standards

[Coren22]

You mean like the facts I provided links to that show you are full of shit?

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstly, something that is not true cannot be shown, by definition. Secondly, you may have stabbed down a fair number of strawmen, but you have not provided any links that refute anything I said. Is it really that hard to admit you're wrong? You don't even have to - just stop making up excuses for protectionist thievery by a rogue state.

Re:double standards

[Coren22]

Why would I admit something that you have not shown? I showed links showing that you are full of shit, you have yet to provide anything that says

the United States government

is

the world's largest polluter

Re:double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't think it necessary to provide links for such a well-known fact, but here you have one.

I showed links showing that you are full of shit.

You haven't. You have provided a few random, environmentally-related links none of which claim the US government was somehow not the world's most polluting organisation.

So, it's okay to pollute...

[Anonymous Coward]

... as long as you pay the government.

So, to avoid any criminal charges, admission of wrongdoing, and most importantly, to enjoy civil immunity from lawsuits by citizens, all they have to do is give the US government a bunch of money, which I promise you has already been spent 10 times over since the government figured out it was coming.

Re:So, it's okay to pollute...

[bobbied]

They spent the money long before they even suspected it was coming, before anybody at VW even thought about trying to cheat....

Actually, I believe that some of this settlement is an agreement to buy back the affected vehicles from their current owners (less mileage and depreciation of course). So the government won't ever get their hands on a good part of this money.

Didn't Pay Enough

[Anonymous Coward]

We're still bitter that the one true and holy savior Obama has given the banking cartels a free pass. This is clearly a shakedown, and arresting one of their execs is punishment for not paying enough to the right PACs.

Buyback deal

[DogDude]

To give them credit, VW has handled the buyback very well. It's been a smooth, orderly process, and the cash amount was good. I doubt they'll lose very many customers over this, because they handled it so well. I think they'll survive this.

Re:Buyback deal

[Paul Carver]

I don't think there should have been a buyback at all. Why should VW be allowed to make their customers jump through hoops or file paperwork. The way it should have been ordered by the courts to work is this:

1) VW owner drives car to VW dealer.
2) Dealer looks up original sticker price (if necessary, look up VIN to find if it was purchased at a different dealer and get the sticker price there.)
3) Customer picks out a car off the lot (possibly with a restriction that the sticker price must be within x% of the sticker price of the car they are returning)
4) If sticker price of new car is lower, VW issues customer a check for the difference in price
5) If sticker price is higher, customer pays the difference (or chooses a different car off the lot)
6) Customer drives away in new car

If customer can't find a single car on the lot that they would want to have, they can go to any other VW dealer and have the same options.

If customer doesn't want a VW at all they can still follow the steps above and sell the brand new car. They ought to be able to get enough from a used car dealer to be worth at least as much as the used price of the VW they originally bought.

VW should do all the paperwork. All the customer should have to do is sign the papers agreeing to a straight swap of the old for new plus the dollar amount of the difference in sticker prices.

Re:Buyback deal

[DogDude]

What you're describing is absurd and childish. The world doesn't work that way. VW needs to have a signed contract with everybody, there needs to be a verification of ownership, transfer of title, and all of that good stuff.

Re:Buyback deal

[Uberbah]

What you're describing is absurd and childish. The world doesn't work that way.

Corporatist.

VW needs to have a signed contract with everybody, there needs to be a verification of ownership, transfer of title, and all of that good stuff.

Yes yes, they should make sure there is a clear title, etc etc. Otherwise his (her?) point still stands and the onus should be 100% on Volkswagon.

Re:Buyback deal

[DogDude]

Dummy, the onus IS on Volkswagen. That's what I said. It's silly and childish to expect to swing by any VW dealer and swap the car, like it's a fucking video game.

Re:Buyback deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Sticker price? That's easy. Every sticker price goes up 50%. Sale price is what matters, not sticker price.

Re:Buyback deal

[moeinvt]

The terms are actually more favorable than what you're proposing because the settlement isn't directly linked to the purchase of a different vehicle. The customers are entitled to a direct payment in the amount of the former NADA value of the cars, plus several thousand dollars in bonus cash. No strings attached.

My neighbor had one of these and he was really happy with the terms of the settlement. The annoying thing for him was that it took so long for it to be finalized.

Re:Buyback deal

[MightyMartian]

What you're describing is absurd and childish...

Yes, but this is /., so it goes without saying that the comments will fall into two main categories: "dismissive because it has something to do with emissions and we all know any attempt to minimize emissions is COMMUNIST!" or "absurd and childish, because it's a corporation, and therefore the GREAT SATAN MUST BE PUNISHED!"

Re:Buyback deal

[Paul Carver]

No, it's like countless other businesses with good customer service. Granted, cars are expensive, but VW screwed up big.

There are countless businesses where you can take back a defective product and get a replacement with minimal hassle. Clothing, food, electronics. If you take the product back to the retail establishment it is VERY common that they'll give you a new one even if the package has been opened as long as the item is clearly defective.

The VW cars were clearly defective. Worse, they were fradulently defective. The person who was defrauded should not be obligated to jump through hoops.

Every car has a unique VIN. VW can take on the burden of verifying the title and verifying that the car is not reported stolen. There's no reason this should be the customer's obligation.

Perhaps the customer should call the dealer first and give them the VIN verbally, or go to a website where the only fields are a VIN field and the dealer that you plan to go to.

Once they have the VIN, VW can do all the legwork and if you pull into the dealer with a car that matches the VIN you claimed it has, VW should have all the paperwork done. There's no justification for making the customer go through multiple steps when it's VW's fault.

Re:Buyback deal

[DogDude]

What legwork are you talking about? What paperwork? I actually own a TDI. I said the process was super easy.

Re:Buyback deal

[Bender0x7D1]

I turn in my Jetta TDI on Thursday. All I have to do is bring the car, my key fobs, and the title, and it will take about 30 minutes to do the paperwork. Everything else is how you described it.

All I had to do was, verify my VIN on the website, and tell them if I had a lien or not. Then I uploaded my registration and title to show that I am the sole owner of my car, and got my appointment to sign the paperwork.

Overall, it is going to take less than half the time of buying a new vehicle to return the old one - and that isn't bad.

The reason there are multiple steps is that there are multiple things that have to be done when you are buying or selling a car - including dealing with registration with 50 different states, plus DC, and other protectorates (Virgin Islands, Guam, etc.).

Re: Buyback deal

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think there should have been a buyback at all.

Well, that's stupid. Why punish the victims and give them nothing?

Why should VW be allowed to make their customers jump through hoops or file paperwork.

What hoops? What do you expect Volkswagen to do, just show up and switch out the car or something?

 

The way it should have been ordered by the courts to work is this:

Funny, you've given them fewer options since now you are forcing them to take a car rather than offering them the option of money.

If customer can't find a single car on the lot that they would want to have, they can go to any other VW dealer and have the same options.

Great, now you're making them drive hundreds of miles.

If customer doesn't want a VW at all they can still follow the steps above and sell the brand new car. They ought to be able to get enough from a used car dealer to be worth at least as much as the used price of the VW they originally bought.

Even more bother. Why did you throw out the cash compensation option? You do realize you madd things worse.

VW should do all the paperwork. All the customer should have to do is sign the papers agreeing to a straight swap of the old for new plus the dollar amount of the difference in sticker prices.

And that is different from what people do now in what way? Please explicitly detail what you thinl the experience is like. What tortures do you think that VW imposes?

You sound like somebody who has no comprehension at all. NeaÅ--ly as bad as my mother when it comes down to it. She can't even grasp telling the doctor how she really feels. To them, she's just ok all the time, even when she's suffering from a post-surgery infection.

Re:Buyback deal

[AmiMoJo]

Did they check the car over much? People have been completely stripping their cars before handing them back, or handing them in with severe accident damage etc.

Re:Buyback deal

[Anonymous Coward]

One of my coworkers is going through that at the moment. He said they jerked him around at every opportunity and has spent the past month checking with them faxing documents, etc...

Re:Buyback deal

[DogDude]

My appointment to drop it off isn't for another month, but no, they never asked about the condition of the car.

Looks like GM got off easy

[haruchai]

GM's penalty for the ignition switch fiasco is less than $1 billion for a deliberate defect about which the the company tried to cover up and lied about for years and killed over 100 people.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...?

Who did VW piss off or forget to blow?

I'm not saying VW should pay less but I don't understand how what they did merits higher fines

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Their Customers. A lot of the money is going towards the vehicle buyback.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[Anonymous Coward]

GM designed a switch that worked in most circumstances, but failed for a corner case.
GM initially shipped not intending to cause harm.
GM did not intentionally break the law.
GM was slow to fix it once caught.

VW did the reverse on all counts.

Both transgressions contributed to the deaths of folks.
My bad-o-meter for which is worse points to VW.

The interesting question here is what punishment will happen personally to the a few of the top folks in charge.
Jail time sounds fair, but if the settlement eliminates that possibility,then in exchange it should shred any Golden parachutes and clawback some bonuses.
Lacking that, the lesson is it's ok to break the law because the company will take care of you.
Want to place odds on what the lesson turns out to be?

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[Uberbah]

GM initially shipped not intending to cause harm.

And a drunk driver doesn't "intend" to cause harm when he gets behind the wheel and ends up killing someone. I suggest Googling the definition of negligence.

GM did not intentionally break the law.

They knowing sold a switch more than a decade after they knew it was defective. Full stop.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[cdrudge]

I'm not saying VW should pay less but I don't understand how what they did merits higher fines

Intent. GM didn't set out to kill people with a design flat. VW intended to deceive regulators and the public by deliberately cheating the system.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[Anonymous Coward]

We agree both GM and VW were bad.

Are you are saying you feel that what GM did seems worse than what VW did?

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[Anonymous Coward]

The GM ignition switches are easily replaceable so they don't have to eat the entire value of the vehicle.

Is there another case of an auto defect/recall that resulted in the manufacturer taking the entire vehicle back?

Captcha: insect

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Who did VW piss off or forget to blow?

They forgot to be an American company. American companies and their executives get away with a slap on the wrist, because America, Fuck Yeah! Too Big To Fail in my Motherfuckin' Suburban Yeah!

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Initially no. But then GM found out about the issue and decided to not do anything about it to not hurt profits.
From that point on there was intent. Profit over peoples lives.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[pr0fessor]

That's the fine alone not including any civil settlements which hadn't occurred yet at the time that article was written. This is a $4.3 billion settlement to resolve civil and criminal allegations.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[PPH]

GM's defect might only have killed people. Volkswagen's threatened to give the giant kangaroo rat a runny nose.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[haruchai]

We agree both GM and VW were bad.

Are you are saying you feel that what GM did seems worse than what VW did?

Given that over 100 deaths have been tied to the ignition defect, yes.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[Anonymous Coward]

and killed over 100 people.

Counterargument: People die in cars all the time, so "the formula" from Fight Club is actually legit. Anything else is virtue-signalling. And VW killed 4000 people:

  http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/09/spreadsheet-day-how-many-people-did-vw-kill

so they're getting a bargain, a fifth of the blood price per head.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[MassHallucination]

Just because we don't know exactly who dies doesn't mean no one died. There are 10s of thousands of people with asthma or clotting disorders. Not to mention the decreased life expectancy even if you don't keel over on the spot. I haven't done the numbers, but it could easily be equivalent to over 100 people.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[haruchai]

If so, I can see a huge legal mess brewing for coal-fired plants. Many of them resisted adding scrubbers and pollution controls for decades.
Trump et al may tried to gut & hobble the EPA but a civilian suit against VW may pave the way for a massive suit against the entire fossil fuel industry and coal is perhaps the biggest target.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, this only settles the criminal allegations. There was a separate $18 billions civil settlement, which brings the total cost very close to 500 times the $45 million GM had to pay when they were caught doing the exact same thing with a similar number of cars twenty years ago.

As for the ignition switch issue, US regulators have even complimented how well GM is handling everything after they lied and tried to cover it up for ten years. No criminal case, no arrests and no repeated public condemning and exaggeration.

It is very, very clear that there are huge differences between how different companies are treated in the US. It may partially be due to lobbying, not wanting to damage employers in ones home district and protecting the politicians who orchestrated the taxpayer-funded bailouts of the US car industry, but it would be very hard not to see a fair amount of regulatory protectionism and favouritism.

Americans should be worried about this. Favouritism is never a good thing, but it also shows the huge risks of doing business in the US. At some point, they will find something and use it to steal as much money as they can and if your company is a threat to US companies with good political connections, they are not above trying to damage your reputation. This is a huge impetus to foreign investment, which in the end simply means fewer jobs and less economic growth.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[silentcoder]

100 Deaths ? Fossil Fuel pollution kills 18000 people every day. For the US alone it's 200-thousand deaths a year. Now, granted, that includes things like factory smog and coal power plants - but cars are a major cause of those deaths. What VW did significantly increased that number over what it would otherwise have been. That figure comes to 550 deaths a day. Let's assume cars are responsible for 10% of those deaths.. This is an EXTREMELY generous assumption since an MIT study showed vehicle emissions are the single LARGEST cause of pollution deaths. We should be pegging this at more like 90% but let's be kind. That's 55 deaths a day from cars.

70% of all passenger diesel cars in the US are VW. That's 39 deaths a day - using the completely unrealistic and generous assumption that a mere 10% of pollution deaths are caused by cars !

VW killed more people every 3 days of the scandal than GM did in the entire 10 years of their scandal COMBINED.
The scandal ranged from at least 2008 to 2015, that's 7 years. 7 * 365 * 39 = 99645

Just shy of a hundred-thousand deaths. Get it - VW in this scandal killed a THOUSAND TIMES as many people as GM did.

And that's just in the US - worldwide the problem gets much bigger, and remember VW is one of the two largest sellers in poorer countries (where VW and Toyota rule the roads) - so it would be worse there, those countries typically have poorer standards of healthcare and laws too - which would further exacerbate the death toll. The global death toll from this scandal must be deep in the millions.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Volkswagen has the worst lawyers ever. They should have hired GM's lawyers.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Intent - covered the first year or 2
After 10 years it was who cares.....

American company - different rules!

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[Uberbah]

This is an extrapolation of an extrapolation of an extrapolation of a false equivalency. The only way someone directly died (you know, like from the GM ignitions) from VW exhaust is if they sat in a running car in a closed garage - which would happen with any other car running on petrol.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[AmiMoJo]

The cost is determined by the number of victims and the severity of what happened to them.

In GM's case there were 100 victims, and the results were often severe (death).

The VW's case there were millions of victims. Everyone who bought a car gets a big chunk of compensation. Everyone else gets a lesser amount via fines that go into general taxation and infrastructure projects.

Justice usually tries to restore things to how they would have been without the bad actions, plus some punitive measures.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[silentcoder]

Then by your reasoning there is
1) No reason to have air quality laws at all
2) No justification for holding companies to account that violate them.

Since there are "direct" deaths - they bear no responsibility ?

Sorry, but I don't buy that reasoning for two reasons:
1) It's been an established point of law that indirectly, but knowingly, causing a death can bear culpability for over 2000 years.
2) It's batshit crazy.

The comparison was in how much harm was done - as that is the just way to determine damages. Whether the harm was direct or indirect is utterly unimportant.

Now your talk about 'extrapolation' comes down to questioning the maths - there's just one problem, I KNOW the maths are wrong, after all there are quite a few numbers we don't have definitive answers for. On every one of those I took the generous approach of assuming the smallest possible values. Using REALISTIC likely values would quadruple or even quintiple the damages. So sure, the maths aren't great - but I did them to maximally benefit Volkswagen - nobody can say I used the unknowns to their detriment, I made assumptions ONLY in their favour.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[Anonymous Coward]

The VW's case there were millions of victims.

Even if you are willing to argue that the owners of affected cars are 'victims' in some way, the settlement only pertains to around 500,000 cars sold in the US. The rest is not involved and there will likely not be any compensation, because the owners have not been disadvantaged in any way and legal systems in other countries tend not to offer compensation without damage.

Everyone else gets a lesser amount via fines that go into general taxation and infrastructure projects.

How exactly is are the 95% of people who are not living in the US or US citizens supposed to profit from this? In fact people in some towns affected by US looting of Volkswagen's profits are already paying for it through increased local taxes and reduced local services.

Justice usually tries to restore things to how they would have been without the bad actions, plus some punitive measures.

Well, not in this case. The way the US has handled this case is much, much worse than the crimes it pertains to.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[MachineShedFred]

I'm not condoning what GM did in any way, but VW violated the Clean Air Act. And, it was a willful violation with negligence, which means that there is a statuary multiplier applied to damages in the Clean Air Act.

I don't believe there is any particular clause in whatever laws GM violated.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[MachineShedFred]

Your math failed right here:

70% of all passenger diesel cars in the US are VW. That's 39 deaths a day

passenger diesel cars. 100% of passenger cars in the US are not diesel. Probably not even 10%. Plus, multiple extrapolations like you've done here leads to increasingly higher deviations in the statistics.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[MachineShedFred]

Yes. Ironically, GM in the 1990s had to recall 470,000 Cadillacs over emissions control defeat devices. The cars involved enriched the fuel to air mixture when the AC or heat was running. AC and heaters are specifically turned off during EPA emissions testing, so they knew that was a way to determine if the car was possibly under test or not.

I'm not sure if the entire car was taken back, or if the ECU was replaced with something that didn't cheat.

Source

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[EndlessNameless]

GM can simply replace the defective ignition switch.

Most of the VM vehicles cannot be modified to comply with the emissions regulations---at least, not without seriously reducing their performance or fuel efficiency.

So a large chunk of the settlement is funding the vehicle trade-in program.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[ve3oat]

GM is an American company; VW is not. Look what the US government did to Toyota (another non-US company) about their so-called uncontrolled acceleration problem. As far as I know, none of the documented cases ever provided proof that the car was at fault. Yet, Toyota paid dearly in reputation, PR, and money for this anxiety-inducing "problem". After the dust settled on this, the press was full of stories about how elderly drivers got their pedals mixed up or tried to accelerate when they were in a different gear than they intended.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[silentcoder]

And making every assumption in their favour more than erases extrapolation deviations - and also more than erases whatever difference the diesel/petrol percentage may be.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[silentcoder]

And you may have missed the point - it should have been obvious from the fact that I CHOSE to make every assumption maximally in their favour. The point is not to calculate the exact number, the point is a simple Fermi-estimation of the severity of the harm imposed compared to that of the GM ignition scandal. The point is not how many were harmed - if that was my goal, I would have done serious research to get accurate numbers for the things I just guessed in their favour - it's merely to illustrate in order of magnitudes how much worse it was. If the margin of error it's anywhere within 2 orders of magnitude then the calculation is close enough for it's intended purpose.

Simply put, as with any Fermi-estimation, the goal is not to determine what the number is, just to know if it's a big number or not.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[Anonymous Coward]

It could be done, but not in ways the US EPA wanted to approve within a reasonable time frame. Even replacing the full engine would be cheaper than what VW is paying now, but the terms of the settlement explicitly prohibit re-use of bought-back vehicles in any way other than with US EPA-approved modifications to the current engines.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[Uberbah]

Then by your reasoning there is
1) No reason to have air quality laws at all

Uh, no, but thanks for beating the false equivalency horse, which is still dead BTW. There some part of the word direct that you're having a hard time with? GM ignitions directly lead to 100+ deaths. Let us know how many VW diesels were used in suicides-by-carbon monoxide. Which would have been no different under gas engines.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[silentcoder]

So you've dismissed something as "false equivalency" and given no reason for it. Please explain why punishing companies under air quality laws are just - if a company is only liable for DIRECT deaths. EVERY death saved by air quality laws is indirect.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Which would have been no different under gas engines.

That is not true. Petrol engines produce much more CO, so it is much easier to commit suicide with a petrol car than with a diesel car.

Our share?

[JustNiz]

..and of course since we had to breathe it in, we are all gonna get a share in the 4.3 billion right? No? thought not.

Re:Our share?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any additional air pollution caused by the defeat device is completely negligible compared to atmospheric levels. The net effect to air quality may even have been positive: not reducing NOx emissions usually also means lower particulate emissions, which are much worse for human health.

This is a regulatory compliance issue, not an air quality issue.

Re:Our share?

[silentcoder]

Actually, yes you are. The part of that money that's not in the buy-back goes to the treasury, which is revenue they then do NOT need to get from taxes. So it means that your tax burden is smaller. The government can pay some of it's bills with money not from your pocket.

So yeah, you are getting a share by having a reduced burden for bills you would otherwise have to pay.

Re:Our share?

[Anonymous Coward]

... The part of that money that's not in the buy-back goes to the treasury, which is revenue they then do NOT need to get from taxes. ...

So yeah, you are getting a share by having a reduced burden for bills you would otherwise have to pay.

Nonsense. You are naive. That is not how governments work. Any additional money they can easily get will be distributed to campaign contributors of the politicians at charge. Of course the money does not go to the campaign contributors directly. That would be too illegal. It goes there by public procurement often through one or more (shell) companies to cover the track. Sometimes the campaign contributors are rewarded by laws favourable for their companies. This is the reason advanced countries have such a complicated laws with a lot of exceptions. It is the result of these rewards.

Re:Our share?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if GP happens to be American, since the US will collect the proceed of the settlement. Taxpayers elsewhere will be paying for a large part of it, since the payment goes out of VW's profits and hence the taxes it is due. The consequences are quite serious in some places.

Re:Our share?

[Anonymous Coward]

..and of course since we had to breathe it in, we are all gonna get a share in the 4.3 billion right? No? thought not.

You are obviously one of those "entitlement" types.

Re: Then on to WWII

[Anonymous Coward]

Mit the wienerli up our assloch!

That'll go toward your deficit spending.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sheesh, merkins stealing money from European companies because they're a nuclear power.

GM is a USA company.

[Anonymous Coward]

See Apple.

Nuff said.

Re:Who did VW piss off or forget to blow?

[ELCouz]

Never underestimate the power of tree huggers!

we are all paying, idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand how what they did merits higher fines

more smog affects everybody, defective switches only affect those in their vicinity

"you don't understand" wow how dumb you are!

Re:we are all paying, idiot

[haruchai]

I don't understand how what they did merits higher fines

more smog affects everybody, defective switches only affect those in their vicinity

"you don't understand" wow how dumb you are!

If you don't know how much impact the loss of a person can have beyond just their "vicinity", it's clear you're just another idiot AC

Re:we are all paying, idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

Th cheat involved NOx emissions, not particulates, so it caused no additional smog.

Re:we are all paying, idiot

[Coren22]

Smog = NOx emissions.

Re:we are all paying, idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. Smog consists of particulates and organic compounds. NOx can aid the formation under certain circumstances, but it is not the primary cause.

Re:we are all paying, idiot

[Coren22]

http://www.windows2universe.or...

Provide citations that prove your side.

Nitrogen compounds (Nitrogen Oxides) are the primary cause of smog.

$4 bn ??

[hcs_$reboot]

Would it be that much if the car maker was a US company?

(answer: no)

Weird world

[Anonymous Coward]

Our parents would not understand it at all. Here we have the goberment extorting a company for building the best most fuel efficient car they could.

More troubling is the fact that all these formerly freedom loving citizens of the USA are all applauding this.

Re:Weird world

[Anonymous Coward]

A car that spews more pollution than the law allows. More pollution than its competitors.

Canada?

[CanEHdian]

Same thing happened here. Guess how much we're getting? I guess most Canadians are just too nice: sure neighbour, why don't you take all the money, and we... we'll.... we'll say "there! good for you!". And we'll just introduce a carbon tax to get money.

Re:Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

It could be worse. Europeans are paying for all this nonsense because everything the US is grabbing comes out of Volkswagen's profits and thus partially out of their tax bill. Some German towns with Volkswagen factories have had to increase local taxes steeply and cut spending on public services.

Europeans = cuckolds

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for all the free money Europeans! Look on the bright side, we could have taken whatever we wanted and we only took $4.3 billion. Now go eat your spoiled cheese and put on your chastity belts you sweet little bitches.

Re:Europeans = cuckolds

[Anonymous Coward]

And meanwhile, the EU and the European countries let GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler get away with cheating in Europe in exactly the same way Volkswagen did in the US, with much higher emissions even. Not a single cent has been fined. They only had to issue a 'voluntary recall' to remove part of the defeat device in a few cases.

Europe should stop acting as the US's free loot box, or at the very least make the US and their companies suffer consequences.

Re:Europeans = cuckolds

[Anonymous Coward]

What is Europe going to do? Write an angry letter, and then throw it away? Are you going to go pout? I assume Europe won't do anything actionable since there are more US military in Europe than European military. http://www.pravdareport.com/world/europe/12-04-2016/134143-usa_troops_europe-0/

This is crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything about this case is crazy. The way the US is exaggerating the severity and acting like this is the first emissions cheating case ever, the insane demands of the US regulatory agencies, the stream of different agencies apparently able to levy separate fines over the same acts, the constant stream of press releases highlighting how evil they consider everything and the insane and utterly disproportional fines and "environmental damage offset" pork. The most ridiculous thing, however, is that the US wants to make VW's shareholders (and indirectly, their employees and taxpayers in places where VW has activities) pay for all of this, while all wrongdoing was on the part of employees, without shareholders or the overwhelming majority of VW group employees even being aware of anything.

I think the people who actually committed or participated in crimes should of course be prosecuted in the applicable jurisdictions, and it might be reasonable to make VW as a company responsible for retrofitting the cars (although the responsible employees should, at least in principle, be liable for the costs), but it is plain injustice to make people who had no part in any of it pay a fine, even disregarding the utterly insane and disproportionate height of it.

I realise the US justice system is broken beyond repair and regulatory agencies in the US are mostly political tools, but I find it hard to believe that anyone involved from either the US Justice Department or the agencies can justify their actions to themselves. The injustice and the regulatory abuse in this case is much, much worse than the crime it is about. These are, after all, people. How can they sleep at night?

Diesel Engines

[Neuronwelder]

Car, Truck, you name it.. After 10,000 miles they all start to stink.

Actually a hair shy of $4.3 billion

[Curate]

The final dollar value of the fine is actually $4,294,967,295 to be exact. This happens to be the highest amount the US DOJ computer system supports currently. VW should consider themselves lucky this time.

Now Everyone Stop Buying Their Cars

[Anonymous Coward]

Make and example of them and stop buying their cars. Let them know this is completely unacceptable!

Re:Now Everyone Stop Buying Their Cars

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm, why? Do you think they had a choice? I could see sense in not buying any US products after this, but why punish the victim?