German Automakers Formed a Secret Cartel In the '90s To Collude On Diesel Emissions, Says Report (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Last week, Der Spiegel published an explosive report alleging that the major German automakers formed a secret cartel in the 1990s to collude on diesel emissions. These companies, including Volkswagen, Audi, BMW, Porsche, and Daimler, met in secret working groups to discuss "the technology, costs, suppliers, and even the exhaust gas purification of its diesel vehicles," the German weekly reported. The meetings were disclosed to German competition officials in letters from VW and Daimler and viewed by Der Spiegel. The secret meetings "laid the basis" for the 2015 diesel emission cheating scandal, in which VW was caught installing secret software in more than half a million vehicles sold in the US that it used to fool exhaust emissions tests. The admission of cheating ultimately cost the automaker tens of billions of dollars in fines and legal fees, making it one of the most expensive corporate scandals in history.

Years earlier, VW participated in dozens of secret meetings with its competitors, involving over 200 employees in up to 60 working groups, on how to meet increasingly tough emissions criteria in diesel vehicles. The automakers may have colluded to fix prices of a diesel emission treatment called AdBlue through these working groups, Der Spiegel says. Specifically, VW (which owns Porsche and Audi), Daimler (which owns Mercedes-Benz and Smart), and BMW allegedly agreed to use AdBlue tanks that were too small. AdBlue is a liquid solution used to counteract a vehicle's emissions.

Comments

Natural result of unrealistic leftist regulations?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this just the natural result of unrealistic or even impossible regulations devised by leftist bureaucrats being forced on companies?

It's easy for regulators to create policies demanding that unrealistic, if not outright impossible, goals be met. And when subjected to these impossible-to-achieve regulations, it doesn't surprise me that those subjected to such regulations would need to find other ways to "achieve" them, to avoid harassment from those who imposed the impossible regulations to begin with.

It's not like the targets of such regulation can change the laws of physics, or magically make inherently uneconomical activities economical. They're forced into a corner where their only option is to cheat or work around the regulation in some way.

If many participants in a given industry end up colluding due to regulations being imposed on them, perhaps the viability of the regulations they're trying to bypass should be reexamined. This shouldn't be done by bureaucrats, but rather by people who are aware of the inherent limitations that physics and economics impose on activity.

In some sense this seems like a bunch of legislators telling 100 m sprinters that they're required to run the race in under 5 seconds. It's easy to say that and to mandate it, but then it's damn near impossible for even the best of the best to achieve it in any legitimate manner. Then a race is held, the runners end up taking 9 seconds or more, and the regulators give them hell for taking so long. So during the next race the runners all choose to ride motorcycles, to allow the requirement to be satisfied. So they do manage to pass the finish line within 5 seconds, but the regulators then accuse them of "colluding" merely because they couldn't overcome what are essentially physics-imposed impossibilities unless they bent the rules.

Re:What If We Create a Better World for Nothing

[MightyMartian]

You are aware that apart from climate change, diesel emissions are carcinogenic. That's some pretty big fucking downsides.