VW cheated on emissions tests

[El_Machinae]

1) Use data to find increased deaths (statistically)
2) Prosecute everyone involved for manslaugter

This pisses me off to no end. And the market is supposed to punish this type of thing.

 

[Antilogic]

Cars easily get the advertised mileage if you drive sensibly and don't accelerate towards stop signs and red lights.

My car's currently rated for 8.5 city, 6.5 hwy, and I average around 5.4 for combined city/in-city highways with 50 km/h average speed.

Yes. I remember outperforming my family by about 4 miles/gallon on fuel efficiency through driving technique (including near-constant cruise control and coasting towards red lights, giving the light time to change so I didn't have to stop).



I'm going to laugh in a few months because VW will quietly settle in corporate-friendly America with a slap on the wrist, like all criminal enterprises do.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Cars easily get the advertised mileage if you drive sensibly and don't accelerate towards stop signs and red lights.

My car's currently rated for 8.5 city, 6.5 hwy, and I average around 5.4 for combined city/in-city highways with 50 km/h average speed.

I sure hope those are liters instead of gallons.

Well, not exactly. You're just very good at suing. ..and I don't really trust your politicians-corporate relations. EU is getting better at suing though. Maybe China and Russia will get there too.

Then I still don't understand your point.

Do you really think a government that spent $3.5 trillion last year really cares about perhaps a few billion dollars in fines from a revenue perspective?

This obviously isn't about fines. It is about a major international corporation intentionally defrauding the governments of numerous countries and their customers.

 

[Borachio]

I sure hope those are liters instead of gallons.

Just to confuse you even further, instead of mpg, it's probably litres per 100 km.

1 litre per 100 km is the same as 282 mpg

 

[Zelig]

I sure hope those are liters instead of gallons.

Yes, my combined hwy/city efficiency is about 14% better than the rated highway efficiency.

 

[Formaldehyde]

You must be so proud. I bet the others who are trapped behind you have a slightly different opinion.

 

[Cutlass]

Unbelievable. How could they possibly think they would get away with this? I don't think I would ever buy a VW, Audi, SEAT, or Skoda ever again...

They got away with it for years. That's really the selling point on trying to get away with things. The question is, if it took 6 years to catch this, what is going on out there that they haven't gotten caught on?

 

[El_Machinae]

I guess competitors aren't doing the obvious, and running tests on other people's fleets

 

[Cutlass]

That would lead to a very harmful tit for tat among the automakers. It's in none of their interests.

 

[innonimatu]

Unbelievable. How could they possibly think they would get away with this? I don't think I would ever buy a VW, Audi, SEAT, or Skoda ever again...

They got away with it for years... Edit: and Cutlass already said it: what is going on out there that they haven't gotten caught on?

Competition is not a natural outcome of a business environment with several companies. They can as easily, and for greater benefit to themselves, set up oligopolies. Competition is just the magical mantra used by those who'd dismantle regulations and (as important as the law) the ability (budget and personnel) of the regulators to perform checks on what they are supposed to supervise.

Not to mention Europe is already taking steps which would have exposed this scam:

Limits on emissions of NOx in Europe are much higher than in the US. They might have gotten away with it, just had to retire the old model quietly before things changed.

 

[Formaldehyde]

EU 6 standards, mandated for implementation this year, are not that much higher than US standards. But it has taken a long time to get there.

This is the big reason why the US has not adopted diesel engines in automobiles nearly as much as Europe has.

 

[Zelig]

You must be so proud. I bet the others who are trapped behind you have a slightly different opinion.

They don't seem to mind. Average speed and travel time aren't affected.

 

[Formaldehyde]

They are usually just too polite to let you know what they really think. Americans don't share that attitude.

 

[Zelig]

They are usually just too polite to let you know what they really think. Americans don't share that attitude.

I've driven in America, never had any problems.

You're probably making incorrect assumptions about how easy it is to get better than rated fuel economy, and how little it disrupts traffic.

Edit: I've typically found driving in America easier than Canada, drivers are more predictable and somewhat less awful at merging.

 

[FriendlyFire]

I think the question will be who ISNT cheating.

On October 22, 1998, the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency announced an $83.4 million total penalty against diesel manufacturers, the largest civil penalty ever for violation of environmental law. Under this settlement, seven major manufacturers of diesel engines will spend more than one billion dollars to resolve claims that they installed computer devices in heavy duty diesel engines which resulted in illegal amounts of air pollution emissions. This settlement will prevent 75 million tons of harmful nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions nationwide by the year 2025. The companies involved are Caterpillar, Inc., Cummins Engine Company, Detroit Diesel Corporation, Mack Trucks, Inc., Navistar International Transportation Corporation, Renault Vehicules Industriels, s.a., and Volvo Truck Corporation.

The seven companies sold 1.3 million heavy duty diesel engines containing illegal "defeat devices," which allow an engine to pass the EPA emissions test, but then turn off emission controls during highway driving. As a result, these engines emit up to three times the current level for NOx a harmful air pollutant.

http://www2.epa.gov/enforcement/detroit-diesel-corporation-diesel-engine-settlement

Obama
Ridiculous, hundred+ dead Americans and no one goes to gaol.

GM Executives Avoid Prosecution for 124 Deaths Caused by Cover-Up of Faulty Ignition Switches

This time, the corporation is General Motors, which on Thursday was fined (pdf) $900 million for covering up its faulty ignition switches that caused at least 124 deaths.

The company, which is charged with wire fraud and a scheme to mislead a government regulator, also scored an agreement with the government that allows prosecution to be delayed for three years. During that time, its safety practices will be subject to independent monitoring. “If G.M. adheres to the agreement…the company can have its record wiped clean,” wrote The New York Times’ Danielle Ivory and Bill Vlasic.

“I don’t understand how they can basically buy their way out of it,” Margie Beskau, whose daughter Amy Rademaker was killed in an October 2006 crash, told the Times. “They knew what they were doing and they kept doing it.”

The $900 million fine is 25% less than the $1.2 billion Toyota had to pay last year for making deceptive statements about safety issues in its vehicles, which lead to the deaths of motorists.

Auto safety advocates were livid. “GM killed over 100 people by knowingly putting a defective ignition switch into over one million vehicles,” Clarence Ditlow of the Center for Auto Safety told Corporate Crime Reporter. “Yet no one from GM went to jail or was even charged with criminal homicide


http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stor...f-faulty-ignition-switches-150921?news=857466

 

[daft]

All this Emission Testing is a bunch of Crap!
Why don't they Emission test Dump Trucks, Tractor Trailers and other Commercial Vehicles?
You are all being fed horse dung again!, especially the environmentalist out there!, the gov't only cares about the dough you pour in for your e-tests, they don't give a flying crap about the environment!

 

[Mise]

@uppi, cutlass, inno: I know they got away with it for 6 years but surely they had some sort of plan to phase this out at some point? They knew they wouldn't get away with it forever, surely? Surely????

 

[Samson]

According to the torygraph, the worst bit about this is not the million tonnes of nitrous oxides we have been breathing, but that people may not look on big business quite so favourably:

The most damaging aspect of this scandal is that it conforms to certain misconceptions people have about how large corporates game the system at the expense of society at large.

The truth is that the vast majority of businesses help improve our lot. But big one-off scandals skew perceptions. Anti-capitalists have gained another stick with which to beat business.

 

[Zelig]

It's not really "big one-off scandals" when you pluralize it.

Big scandals should skew perception, they skew results, because they're big!

 

[Cutlass]

@uppi, cutlass, inno: I know they got away with it for 6 years but surely they had some sort of plan to phase this out at some point? They knew they wouldn't get away with it forever, surely? Surely????

How long did GM get away with faulty ignitions switches? How long did Toyota get away with engines which burn a ton of oil?

The thing is that we only know about what they got away with for years before getting caught. We don't know what they have not yet been caught at. So there really is a lot of reason to think they think they could get away with it indefinitely. Or, at least long enough so that the profits outweigh the eventual fines.