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VW Group, BMW and Daimler Are Under Investigation For Collusion In Europe (cnet.com)
The European Commission has launched an antitrust investigation into the Volkswagen Group, BMW and Daimler, over allegations they colluded to keep certain emissions control devices from reaching the market in Europe, according to a statement the Commission released on Tuesday. CNET reports: The technologies the group allegedly sought to bury include a selective catalytic reduction system for diesel vehicles, which would help to reduce environmentally problematic oxides of nitrogen in passenger cars, and "Otto" particulate filters that trap particulate matter from gasoline combustion engines.
"The Commission is investigating whether BMW, Daimler and VW agreed not to compete against each other on the development and roll-out of important systems to reduce harmful emissions from petrol and diesel passenger cars," said Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, head of competition policy for the European Commission, in a statement. "These technologies aim at making passenger cars less damaging to the environment. If proven, this collusion may have denied consumers the opportunity to buy less polluting cars, despite the technology being available to the manufacturers."
"The Commission is investigating whether BMW, Daimler and VW agreed not to compete against each other on the development and roll-out of important systems to reduce harmful emissions from petrol and diesel passenger cars," said Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, head of competition policy for the European Commission, in a statement. "These technologies aim at making passenger cars less damaging to the environment. If proven, this collusion may have denied consumers the opportunity to buy less polluting cars, despite the technology being available to the manufacturers."
It's shocking how Europe is always so biased against these American companies and never investigates any of it's own.
Oh wait.
And he says, Kavanaugh is a perv, but so am I and you voted for me anyway. Except the 3 million more who voted for Hillary. Lock Her Up!
Nobody wants these underpowered 1L engines that they try to compensate for by putting in a turbocharger. What they don't like to tell you is when your turbo or your intercooler shit itself is you're stuck with a $4000 repair bill. Then on top of that, they want to attach all sorts of non sense to the exhaust system. I don't blame these guys for going, "We're not going to develop this crap, our customers don't want it anyways."
... sometimes with good reason, but we need people like him to force innovation on these dinosaurs otherwise nothing will change even if at the end of the day the maverick loses and the dinosaurs survive but producing much better vehicles.
.... and its unrealistic CO2 emissions targets. Sure, it will end up with cars producing less CO2, but they'll as you say be less reliable and all the replacement parts required and/or early scrapping will easily offset any minor gains in the exhaust emissions.
So we gassed a few thousand monkeys and sold dirty polluting bullshit fraud-mobiles, that's just a fun weekend at Mar-a-lago...
No pee pee tapes.
THERE'S NO COLLUSION!111!
... Except a token gesture. Germany's car industry is vital to German economy, and Europe's economy IS German economy. That's just the way it is. That's why Dieselgate was a powerful shock to the whole EU and a "friendly" reminder from president Obama that the US can turn off the EU at any given moment without Europeans being able to do anything about it. Junker is huffing and puffing and making a big show of challenging Trump's America because he knows that retaliatory measures against the EU would be opposed by Democrats, while a Dem president with a Dem majority would have been unimaginably dangerous to defy. Hillary would have laid down the law, in even harsher terms than Obama did, with Euros having no choice but to comply. But Junker also understands that he's on his last legs and he can drop everything over his successor, who must only hope push does not come to shove. If it boils down to US interests vs EU interests, both parties will stare down the EU and bring it to heel.
"Otto" particulate filters
Dammit, Otto. What did you do this time?
I don't know what this new warriorism is, but we need to nip it in the bud.
Companies do this literally ALL THE TIME. It's not called collusion. It's called cooperation. GM and Ford have been sharing transmission designs for literally decades.
It just so happens that Audi, VW, and BMW, in addition to lobbying government not to require these systems, decided to work together to come up with a system that could be used in all of their cars, driving down the costs for all of them.
This is GOOD FOR CONSUMERS on both fronts. The cost savings of not having to have the systems at all is the ideal, but if they're going to be forced by government to have them, they may as well make them as cheaply as they can by leveraging the economy of scale.
So what do we call these imbeciles who insist that everything is collusion? Well, besides just calling them imbeciles? Collusion Warriors?
... sometimes with good reason, but we need people like him to force innovation on these dinosaurs otherwise nothing will change even if at the end of the day the maverick loses and the dinosaurs survive but producing much better vehicles.
There is nothing innovative about Tesla. His reputation "innovative disruptive genius" is all made up by his publicists and eaten up whole by sycophantic fanboys who believe everything that liar says and make excuses for his stupidity.
Does he do what he's done with SpaceX and hire people who know what they're doing for Tesla?
Nope.
Typical Silicon Valley arrogance - making cars is easy! And no one else wants to use Tesla batteries. That'll be your home work because you fanboys just stick you fingers in your ears and ignore any and all truth about Musk Tesla's faults.
Sold long position at $365.55, then shorted and covered. $$$$$$$$ Yeee Haw! I'm staying away from the SS Tesla Titanic Captained by the drug impaired Elon Musk
Force them to make electric or nothing. We simply can't trust them with anything else.
W W I I I
Of course it would. Who else!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think liberals love the collusion angle of anything. Makes its sound more evil and out the get someone. In the end it was about unrealistic emission regulations that amounts to all makers trying to find ways to sell those cars with those engines. If the car maker did not do something the owners would complain and may even try to adapt something of their own to skirt emissions and make their engines run better.
Yes, we need to improve emissions but at a pace that engineering can achieve and not set the bar too high so that engine makers have little choice but to cheat.
The whole world has to fight for carbon neutral enviroment, whilw those greedy mfs dont give a single f about the future of this planet. Record fines and big jail time is the only way to show how serious thia aituation is.
Only Tesla scandals, real and imagined, are to be given top play. Please take down this thread.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
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There was absolutely no collusion, and if their was, collsion is not a crime!
So you'll be able to point me in the direction of another 2 ton electric 4 door that can do 0-60 in 3 seconds and still has a quoted range of 300 miles and is on sale today then won't you....
Come on , whats keeping you....
It's just the old saying that no replacement for displacement, which is proven to be absurd these days.
In passenger cars, a 2.0L 4 cylinder turbo nowadays produces more power than a 3.5L 6 cylinder naturally aspired 20 years ago (that's around 300PS).
A 1.0L 3 cylinder turbo can produce about 140PS, which is sufficient for most people who wants to buy a car.
The traditional big displacement engines from the American manufacturers...I haven't seen any stats they're in any way more reliable than the turbos.
Where does your "nobody" come from? If you know how to drive. It's in no way "underpowered". Of course, if you don't know how to drive, it's another story.
There's little doubt that automakers would sell their grandmothers into slavery if the price was right, I'm a bit curious why they would take the legal risk of conspiring to suppress development of a spectrum of emission control technologies. The cost of plugging away lethargically on emission control device development is low ("Hey we're working on better catalysts. But it's slow. Developing new technologies takes time"). The cost of getting caught is likely to be very high.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
>3.5L 6 cylinder naturally aspired 20 years ago (that's around 300PS)
So WTF is a PS ?
The unit of power is a KiloWatt , I think 76KW is about 100 HorsePower
One of the things people judge others on, is what they drive. I have seen candidates hired because, "they drive a BMW, they are organized", or "A single male with a minivan... probably gay or a mental case." That becomes just as part of an interview as what one says in front of the candidates. When dating, I have encountered dates made/broken solely on the make of vehicle driven.
People don't realize that appearances do matter. That 20 year old Daewoo may work, but people will not give you the time of day, and consider you a mental patient.
Democrat part is part of collusion and election interferance! Other party of VW/BMW or whatever are TOTALLY INNOCENT.
Remember when the CEO blamed the programmers?
So it was VW and Daimler who hacked the US 2016 Election. It was the Germans, not the Russians, all along!
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver --Proverbs 25:11
Europe has much stricter environmental laws, but it turns out European manufacturers are shady as fuck. This is pretty much the perennial argument about private enterprise throwing up their hands once the government steps in.
Us auto sales in 207 were around 17 million. source. There's 222 million drivers in America. That's around 7% of drivers buying new cars.
Somehow this doesn't seem sustainable. It's also probably why used car prices are so crazy. E.g. a low mileage used car is within 10% of the price of a new one. I paid $12.5k for a 2014 Sentra not long ago and only got it that cheap because it'd been in a fender bender....
OTOH I wish I could come up with a way to snatch trade ins from dealers and put them in the hands of buyers. A coworker just took a nice, 4 year old, low mileage car to the dealer for trade in and got $4k for it. That dealer will turn around and sell it for $10-$13.
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Duh. Stop supporting Nazis. Spit on BMWs and their drivers too!