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Volkwagen Finally Pleads Guilty On 'Dieselgate' Charges (cnet.com)
Friday Volkswagen admitted in court that they'd committed fraud in their diesel emissions tests, also pleading guilty to falsifying statements and obstruction of justice. An anonymous reader quotes CNET:
It marks the first time VW admitted guilt in any court in the world, according to a VW spokesman speaking to Reuters. The judge overseeing the case in the U.S. District Court in Detroit accepted the plea and will issue a sentence at a hearing on April 21. "The agreements that we have reached with the US government reflect our determination to address misconduct that went against all of the values Volkswagen holds so dear," Volkswagen said in an emailed statement... The road to Dieselgate's conclusion still has plenty of pavement, though. The company is still under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Internal Revenue Service. And that's in the US alone.
"VW AG is pleading guilty to all three counts because it is guilty on all three counts," the company's general counsel told the judge. Reuters also reports that VW offered to buy back half a million vehicles just in America, and agreed to spend up to $25 billion in the U.S. to address claims from unhappy owners.
"VW AG is pleading guilty to all three counts because it is guilty on all three counts," the company's general counsel told the judge. Reuters also reports that VW offered to buy back half a million vehicles just in America, and agreed to spend up to $25 billion in the U.S. to address claims from unhappy owners.
We know how that turns out!
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What, then there is no free pizza and a ride on Air Force One after all?
What I don't understand is why anyone in the US would buy a VW in the first place? They are far less reliable than "Japanese" cars, and probably "American" cars. Maybe German immigrants would buy them for patriotic reasons?
"all of the values Volkswagen holds so dear"
Profits above everything else?
My sister in law just got her check from VW and now is happily driving her new Honda CRV.
With all of the funny electronics running in these vehicles, unless I can audit the code being used I'm going to assume every automaker is doing the same thing and Volkswagon forgot or didn't think to pay the campaign *cough bribe cough* contributions.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
I'm not sure of the extent, but Bosch has reached a tentative settlement with the U.S. courts as well. As a Jetta diesel owner who accepted the buyback, I just received a postcard from the courts saying I'm automatically included in the Bosch settlement, unless I actively opt out. They'll be sending me a check for up to $350 once (if) the settlement is accepted by the courts. The hearing is on May 11.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Hopefully this means there will be a really packed used market of ultra cheap Diesel VW's with patched firmware. The real problem here is the severity of the regulations, not the cars themselves. If passenger trucks were held to the same standard there wouldn't be a single redneck "rollin' coal" out there.
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1. Whether the penalty is "huge" can only be decided if we know how much VW profited from the deception.
2. They miscalculated the chance of being caught.
Ja ja! Natürlich! Das ist fantastisch stangenzirkel!
Who then, who's going to jail?
In the end, this method worked so wonderfully for the other U.S. car companies. US JOBS are at stake.... LoLz....
Number of affected vehicles sold times (average price of vehicles sold, inflation adjusted in current dollars, minus average current used car sale price); to be distributed to all owners in proportion to their vehicle's current used car sale price. I saw the number 11 million thrown around as the number of such cars in the U.S. Say average resale value is 33% of the original $30k inflation adjusted dollars. 10M x ($30k - $10k) = $200B.
Punitive damages are trebled, so also pay twice the above to the government or someone else to distribute as appropriate. So the US local, state and federal governments affected can decide how to split the $400B and give it back to the people.
Throw some community service in there for good measure. Maybe something like 1,000 hours per corporate employee or executive. I see around 600K VW employees. That means they are responsible for 600M hours, or some 68 millennia, of community service. I propose the court require managers and executives to perform there hours before requiring subordinates to complete theirs.
So, a reasonable and fair punishment is $600B and ~60 millennia of community service.
and unique and well, doing that for real is hard and moderately risky. Using your purchases to differentiate yourself is an easy/safe solution. Yeah, it's shallow, but that's also what makes it easy. For a more extreme example look for anyone who owns a Scout or a Saab.
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it's not a person, it's an abstract concept commonly known as a company...
I don't suppose anyone who actually made/forced these decisions will be pleading guilty to anything? A pound of weed'll put you in jail for half a decade or more but I'm guessing these guys will just pay a token fine that's less than 1/3 what they made off the cheating.
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Well, I submitted my buyback in December and haven''t heard a word from Volkswagon on the issue.
On top of that, when I call about my car they consistently tell me my signed papers aren't in order, or my papers are blank, or my papers are not received from their settlement portal or they are notorized wrong...the excuses are endless, and of course all false.
It is starting to get sorta irritating and although I signed papers to not pursue further damages, I didn't sign papers with the intention they would lie to me on the phone, obfuscate the return or just simply ignore my phone calls, which I am starting to consider that the offer was in bad faith.
They better start responding to my inquiries about my 2015 TDI or I am going to get an attorney and sue them based on bargaining in bad faith.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I refuse to comment on anything that uses that ridiculous suffix.
Look- it's clear from their behavior that volks wagon doesn't hold any values dear except making a profit.
They are an amoral, asocial corporation.
The instant their feet are not to the fire, they will return to being amoral and asocial.
Put the CEO and management in prison for 6 months.
THEN the volkswagon corporation may have concious because future CEO's and management will know they are personally at risk.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Finally; now, at last, Volkswagen will be thrown in jail like it deserves. In an orange, VW shaped jumpsuit, I assume. Oh, and the fines; that will surely punish those ... um, mutual funds, maybe? Finally, justice, just like we all hoped. Now let's all take a deep breath (or, [cough], maybe not just yet).
I'd say things are pretty easy on VW considering what they should have had to produce for all of their customers (complete corresponding source code including build tools licensed under a free software license or, for the cars that never should have been sold in the first place, buy-back of the car at whatever price the person paid).
Management is eager to get this behind them in a way where people think it's over and done with, but there's no reason to trust any of the auto manufacturers involved in the conspiracy (not just VW used code designed to fool tests). VW's got self-driving cars to try to position (they appear to be pushing this concept now) and sell, after all. Can't have memories of how they ripped off customers lingering in the minds and 'tainting' future products, even though that's precisely what's fair and reasonable for would-be customers to do.
Digital Citizen
Volkwagen Fnally Plads Gilty N 'Dieselgte' Chrges - FTFY
Sigger than your average
Volkswagen was rather quick to acknowledge the cheat and start working on a solution, but none of the other brands that were caught doing the same have so far admitted that their cars contain defeat devices, despite clear evidence and ongoing criminal proceedings. One wonders if it was a wise choice for VW to fess up and deal with the consequences. The others may have saved themselves many billions by denying and claiming that their defeat devices serve to protect the engine...
That if, if anything only a small part of the issue.
American cars are built with the needs and desires of American customers, American roads, American gasoline and American parking spaces in mind.
Elsewhere in the world:
a) You don't drive a pickup truck to haul your tools and supplies if you're a small business, you drive a van or an actual small truck.
b) You want a car that fits into the local parking spaces. Which in most places are smaller than American ones.
c) You want a car that's designed for local speed limits, which may be higher than the speed limits in the US.
d) You want a car that makes optimal use of the locally available gasoline. In Europe, that's usually higher octane rating stuff than in the US.
e) You want a stick shifter if you're used to it. Stick shifters are almost nonexistent in the US, while still fairly common in Europe.
f) You may not want an AC, especially in countries that don't become as hot and humid as parts of the US do.
Volkswagen should have told the American authorities to stick their fines wherever they like and pulled out of the US market completely. They may have bought it of at great cost this time, but sooner later the Americans will find or invent something else to steal billions again. Someone should send a message that it is time for them to repair their legal system and that agressive regulatory agencies functioning as a thinly-veiled protectionism tool scares away foreign investors and jobs. Playing along and handing over many billions of hard-earned money may make the problem go away for now, but it sends the wrong message entirely and is unlikely to do any good in the long term.