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

Posted by msmash on from the paying-up dept.

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.

68 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. double standards by Avarist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?

    --
    In Capitalist US, the commerce controls the Government.
    1. Re:double standards by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Funny

      Only allowed when the EU targets a USA company.

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

      --
      No sig today...
    2. Re:double standards by plague911 · · Score: 4, Informative
      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.

    3. Re:double standards by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      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.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    4. Re:double standards by plague911 · · Score: 4, Interesting
      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.

    5. Re:double standards by hey! · · Score: 1

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

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    6. Re:double standards by David_Hart · · Score: 1

      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?

    7. Re:double standards by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      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.

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      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    8. Re:double standards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      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.

    9. Re:double standards by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    10. Re:double standards by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      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".

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    11. Re:double standards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      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.

    12. Re:double standards by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      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?

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    13. Re:double standards by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    14. Re:double standards by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      [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.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    15. Re:double standards by Coren22 · · Score: 1

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

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      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    16. Re:double standards by Coren22 · · Score: 1

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

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      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    17. Re:double standards by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      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?

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    18. Re:double standards by Coren22 · · Score: 1

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

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      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    19. Re:double standards by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      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.

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      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    20. Re:double standards by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      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.

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      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    21. Re:double standards by Coren22 · · Score: 1

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

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      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    22. Re:double standards by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      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

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  2. Re:So, it's okay to pollute... by bobbied · · Score: 1

    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.

    --
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  3. Buyback deal by DogDude · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

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    I don't respond to AC's.
    1. Re:Buyback deal by Paul+Carver · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Buyback deal by DogDude · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

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      I don't respond to AC's.
    3. Re:Buyback deal by DogDude · · Score: 2

      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.

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      I don't respond to AC's.
    4. Re:Buyback deal by moeinvt · · Score: 1

      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.

    5. Re:Buyback deal by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      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!"

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    6. Re:Buyback deal by Paul+Carver · · Score: 1

      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.

    7. Re:Buyback deal by DogDude · · Score: 1

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

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      I don't respond to AC's.
    8. Re:Buyback deal by Bender0x7D1 · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.).

      --
      Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
    9. Re:Buyback deal by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    10. Re:Buyback deal by DogDude · · Score: 1

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

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  4. Looks like GM got off easy by haruchai · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    1. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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?

    2. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by Uberbah · · Score: 1, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by cdrudge · · Score: 2

      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.

    4. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by pr0fessor · · Score: 1

      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.

    5. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by PPH · · Score: 1

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

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    6. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by haruchai · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    7. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by MassHallucination · · Score: 1

      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.

    8. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by haruchai · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    9. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by silentcoder · · Score: 1

      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.

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    10. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      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.

    11. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    12. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by silentcoder · · Score: 2

      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.

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      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    13. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      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.

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    14. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      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.

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    15. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      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

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    16. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by EndlessNameless · · Score: 1

      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.

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      According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
    17. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by ve3oat · · Score: 1

      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.

    18. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by silentcoder · · Score: 1

      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.

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    19. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by silentcoder · · Score: 1

      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.

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    20. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      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.

    21. Re:Looks like GM got off easy by silentcoder · · Score: 1

      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.

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  5. Our share? by JustNiz · · Score: 1

    ..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.

    1. Re:Our share? by silentcoder · · Score: 1

      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.

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    2. Re:Our share? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      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.

  6. Re:Who did VW piss off or forget to blow? by ELCouz · · Score: 1

    Never underestimate the power of tree huggers!

  7. $4 bn ?? by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

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

    (answer: no)

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  8. Re:we are all paying, idiot by haruchai · · Score: 1

    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

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    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  9. Canada? by CanEHdian · · Score: 1

    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.

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  10. Diesel Engines by Neuronwelder · · Score: 1

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

  11. Actually a hair shy of $4.3 billion by Curate · · Score: 1

    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.

  12. Re:we are all paying, idiot by Coren22 · · Score: 1

    Smog = NOx emissions.

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    APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  13. Re:we are all paying, idiot by Coren22 · · Score: 1

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

    Provide citations that prove your side.

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

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    APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?