Volkswagen gets busted.

iannis · Sep 22, 2015

Germany isn't going to let one leg of it's economic base be bullied by the EPA. I'm sorry man, they're just not. And I don't know if touching off a trade war with Europe over some crafty Germans is really the -best- idea. It's a big enough deal to be political.

lol hippies. Maybe if GM made a good car we wouldn't have these sorts of problems.

Lendarios · Sep 22, 2015

The class action should allow the guys that bought the cars, to return it for the amount they paid for it, after financing. Or trade the car for another VW car at such value.

AladainAF · Sep 22, 2015

TJT_sl said:
It could easily be a really deep rabbit hole. I am not an automotive engineer but I do work for an auto manufacturer. Just developing their internal financial software. From what the article says, some device was throttling the emissions, triggered by embedded software. That involves fabrication, tooling, etc, etc. The current CEO probably legitimately had no idea, you're right. But various lead engineers, software designers and quality assurance people might have been questioning the changes (that were probably either done at last minute after all control checks were completed and production was greenlighted, or at design level from the very beginning. But few people knowing their actual purpose).

But if we find out their lobbyist groups and shit were intentionally trying to keep these "solid tests" in place its going to be an absolute circus. VW is going to have to answer some really hard questions and I am actually extremely curious how much of the investigative results the public will get. A lot of people had to know about it along the design/production chain for it to work.

I would bet that actually the engine under original test emitted too much, and the cost to "fix" it was too high and would take too long. This was simply a "fix" implemented by, I would bet, upper management. I highly doubt this ever went into any QA, in fact I'm almost positive it wouldn't - as they would want as few hands on this as possible.

Neki · Sep 22, 2015

.

kaid · Sep 22, 2015

It would have to do some QA they would have to make sure their fix could repeatably spoof the emissions tests or their charade would fall apart fast. So this would have taken a non trivial amount of cost/effort.

Going forward can any VW car pass any emission test in the US. Given they were caught spoofing this bad will they just automatically given a failing grade going forward which would effectively ban VW from most more populated states.

The penalties for this one are going to be pretty enormous. This is not some engineering issue that was a mistake this was a premeditated systematic attempt to bypass the laws of our country.

Itzena_sl · Sep 22, 2015

Fine VW, give the money to Greece.

Cad · Sep 22, 2015

Iannis_sl said:
Too big to fail, bro.

If you're going to go that way with it you don't need a one time fine. You need a straight up tariff.

Because any fine that is levied which "will ensure that no company does this again" will result in the dissolution of the company. And dude... VW isn't going to dissolve over this. Not outright, and not because they tricked Americans. At worst they'll stop im/exporting (voluntary or not) to America. Since that's what you're looking at, you might as well turn a buck off of it.

I think the fine needs to be big enough, and the future testing requirements onerous enough to result in VW cars effectively being banned in the US. Honestly. I'm not a clean air zealot but we make such laws for a reason. To have a company come up with a large scale method to circumvent the laws so that they can sell a product is about the worst thing they can do. Especially a foreign company that is violating the environmental laws of our country.

And I own a VW-group car.

kaid · Sep 22, 2015

I don't see them being able to sell diesels in the US for the foreseeable future. Nobody is going to want to do the extra testing to make sure they actually are not cheating again so they probably will just get auto fails on any emissions test as any presumption would have to be they are still faking it. I have always liked VW cars but this is so beyond the pale and the level of effort needed to pull off this deception I could even see justification to simply ban import of the cars as impossible to test for compliancy due to their conduct.

iannis · Sep 22, 2015

Oh yeah, I don't think Germany is gonna skate away with a teehee, sillyheads.

But I think the realities are that VW is gonna get spanked but not murdered.

Who knows though. They might become effectively banned in the US for a few years because of absolutely punative import tariffs. Which... I mean, yeah. It's fraud on a breathtaking scale. I also applaud them because LOL. But honestly -- how did they think that eventually it wouldn't be uncovered, and what did they THINK the repercussions were going to be?

Maybe they were banking on a faster incorporation of Lesser Germany into the Empire. I doubt they really thought it through past "q2 profits are insane!"

iannis · Sep 22, 2015

VW is the Lexus of the 2020's.

It's also worth remembering that it casts doubt on other companies, not just VW. So it's in mostly everyone's interest who is in that market to get this shit handled fast. Or so it would seem to me. You don't want a drawn out 5 year process. You want to settle and forget.

kaid · Sep 22, 2015

Yes that is a good point. VW was caught how many others are doing something similar. This seems like a pretty weird thing for such a major company to do but it makes me wonder if it was not industry standard nudge nudge wink wink sure we will pass your emissions tests. I would at this point recommend serious real world testing of all diesels

koljec_sl · Sep 22, 2015

Iannis_sl said:
Oh yeah, I don't think Germany is gonna skate away with a teehee, sillyheads.

But I think the realities are that VW is gonna get spanked but not murdered.

Maybe. I mean that's the way law and business typically work.

But if people are reading the headlines about Exxon and Shell's doomsdays, and if environmental laws are to mean anything at all, the current context is right for the punishment to be extreme.

I have a new VW that I really like, and I understand companies can't do some critical things without breaking a few environmental eggs, but this is just an awful fuck you to people, country, and world.

If other auto manufacturers are resorting to similar schemes to get their cars on the road, the whole industry needs to be checked.

TJT · Sep 22, 2015

Yeah the fundamental difference between GM's ignition and this is just crazy in and of itself

GM - This ignition switch has a little less torque than before. It could, theoretically, switch off if a large keychain had enough weight on it or something like that turn the engines off unexpectedly and cause an accident. But its more of a concern than an actual danger (however wrong, this was their thought process). This kind of fix will cut into our Q2 Profits.

VW - Hey these emission laws are some shit. It would take us a long god damn time and money to build engines in order to meet these American bullshit laws. Hey, how about we design a system that allows us to beat the tests. Then market our cars as safe-diesel. Think of the Q2 Profits! Its brilliant!

Furry · Sep 22, 2015

Lol at people thinking the US government is gonna go VW is too big to fail. You realize that in the US the size of a company is determined by the size of its political contributions, right?

VW aint gonna have many friends in america when it comes to this. They absolutely are going to take a gigantic kick to the balls.

Lendarios · Sep 22, 2015

They have 1 plant in america in TN, with 2k employees. They don't have political clout.

Itzena_sl · Sep 22, 2015

kaid_sl said:
Yes that is a good point. VW was caught how many others are doing something similar. This seems like a pretty weird thing for such a major company to do but it makes me wonder if it was not industry standard nudge nudge wink wink sure we will pass your emissions tests. I would at this point recommend serious real world testing of all diesels

Most other manufacturers couldn't get their diesels to pass CAFE testing* and were surprised/confused that VW could. Guess we know how they did it now!

*Until they started using AdBlue-type technology in the last year or so.

Hachima · Sep 22, 2015

VW should also have to pay back the US government the money credited to people that qualified for alternate vehicle tax credits with these cars if the current behavior of the cars don't meet the requirements for that program.

Mahes · Sep 22, 2015

lendarios_sl said:
They have 1 plant in america in TN, with 2k employees. They don't have political clout.

I feel bad for those employees. That plant will most likely be shut down now. This event will resonate with a lot of people who had nothing to do with what happened but are about to have thier lives changed because of it.

It is not funny to me. Because of that reason alone, the fine should have a detrimental effect or it will just be repeated by another company. If this was just middle management trying to be sneaky, then it is a sad state of affairs as it is clear that something like this should have had more checks in place to prevent. If I were the middle management that had tried to be sneaky, my job would not be the only thing I would be concerned about losing.

Ritley · Sep 22, 2015

Basically every diesel has had to add a urea tank and that injects it into the system and ultimately reduce nitrogen oxide levels. The only way to fix this for VW is to adjust the SW so it always runs like it does for the emissions test. Which would result in massive consumer lawsuits because that will cripple the power and fuel economy. The other option would be to somehow retrofit every car affected with the urea tank and update the software to follow current regulations for when that tank is empty. And then still get sued by consumers

Palum · Sep 22, 2015

Does this have enough impact to cripple VW or just bloody their nose? I mean the EPA thing could get reduced with enough pandering and promises but how do they fix 500,000 cars and what happens to their revenue from that segment?

Additionally, even the Germans are furious not because of emissions but because they are tarnishing the integrity of German auto industry branding.

This is looking more and more like it could seriously threaten the company's US operations, maybe not destroy but certainly cripple or cause massive restructuring (bankruptcy or not).

Volkswagen gets busted.

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