VW in US about to be slapped with mammoth emissions fine

[Zak33]

Turns out the US government have determined that VW have side stepped the US definition if clean exhaust fumes


What I can't determine due to news websites being so utterly full on sensational journalism and little fact....is,whether they're just using what we all have now....partuliculate filters...to hold the diesel particulates until you're on a long run when they then burn off.

If that's it....and that's what VW are being slapped for....then it's gonna get complex. If that's the case then all the work done to keep city air half decent would be undone....if those,half million cars that allegedly need recalling....have the filters removed....then all the cars will belch black fumes in towns like they used too.


Anyone got any good links to this news that aren't lowered to gutter press lack of detail?

[Zak33]

GoogleFu improved.....

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/19..._r=0&referrer=

It that's all correct....then VW have programmed the cars to lower emissions around the calendar dates of annual emissions testing :-) lol...proper lol

That's sooooo naughty.

[Zak33]

Yes...it's being mirrored on UK news sites too.

Ok...let's ponder this.

They've got to take back half a million VW and audis...remove the "device" which sounds like software.....and improve the emissions!!

How the hell will that happen!? Drop the horse power on every car? Fit,new engines ;-) super-lol

This sounds,like an anti german car assault by the us government doesn't it?

[peterb]

An variation on the Ford Pinto case (where Ford determined it was cheaper to pay out on injury claims than re-design the rear axle and fuel rank arrangement)

[Knoxville]

Yes...it's being mirrored on UK news sites too.

Ok...let's ponder this.

They've got to take back half a million VW and audis...remove the "device" which sounds like software.....and improve the emissions!!

How the hell will that happen!? Drop the horse power on every car? Fit,new engines ;-) super-lol

This sounds,like an anti german car assault by the us government doesn't it?

It's happened before. A lot of people have argued that some of the legislation in the U.S was put in place specifically to push Japanese imports out of the market. The Nissan Skyline in particular springs to mind. How true it is though we'll never know.

As for VW programming their cars to run cleaner at test time... Naughty, but bloody clever. I'm actually sort of proud of them in a slightly twisted way

An variation on the Ford Pinto case (where Ford determined it was cheaper to pay out on injury claims than re-design the rear axle and fuel rank arrangement)

That was the basis for part of Fight Club was it not?

[Zak33]

The first rule of fight club......

Is program your car's,to lower emissions at test time and leave dangerous cars as dangerous cars

[Knoxville]

The second rule is to start an F1 team with your new found ability to circumvent rulebooks that apply to everyone else

How dangerous is dangerous though? Not playing devils advocate here particularly, but compared to emissions regulations from say ten years ago is 40x more than the amount allowed under the clean air act a huge amount by comparison?

[jim]

So if it's the right time of year for emissions testing, the performance of the car drops to improve its emissions performance?

What I'm puzzled about is this: if the drop in performance is so significant, why did nobody notice? And if the drop in performance was too insignificant for anybody to notice, why bother doing it at all?

[TeePee]

It's about pushing clean diesels out of the market, which the US government has been doing for years. The Oil companies have a lot of lobbyists.

[Zak33]

How dangerous is dangerous though? Not playing devils advocate here particularly, but compared to emissions regulations from say ten years ago is 40x more than the amount allowed under the clean air act a huge amount by comparison?

not the exahust fumes... the rear fuel tank and axle danger from America

[abaxas]

So VW just bought one of each of all Ford, GM, etc cars. My betting is within days they have the yanks by the balls.

[GuidoLS]

So if it's the right time of year for emissions testing, the performance of the car drops to improve its emissions performance?

What I'm puzzled about is this: if the drop in performance is so significant, why did nobody notice? And if the drop in performance was too insignificant for anybody to notice, why bother doing it at all?

There's no such thing as right time of year. Your inspection date here in the US is based on date of purchase, date of registration, and due date on property tax where applicable. My due date is in March. My neighbor's is in August. His is in December. Hers is in October... and so on and so on and so on.

If I'm reading this correctly, what triggers the 'proper' emission controls is the plugging in of the data reader on the computer of the car, which then changes how the actual physical process works. Not every state checks actual emissions. It's not even tested uniformly across an entire state - for example, some counties in TN (and soon to be NC) don't test emissions at all, while other counties do.

Also of note - it's not the entire VW diesel line - just the Jetta and Passat, so it's not some witch hunt as intimated in a couple of posts... and this isn't exactly new... the first recalls on these vehicles were last December. And VW isn't screaming innocent victim here. They've just quietly made all the vehicles in question unavailable. So it kind of makes a person go hmmmm... maybe they weren't playing on the up and up... it wouldn't be the first time, foreign or American made.

[GuidoLS]

BERLIN (AP) — The head of Volkswagen came under pressure Monday as the company saw around 15 billion euros ($16.9 billion) wiped off its market value following revelations that the German carmaker rigged U.S. emissions tests for about 500,000 diesel cars.

Martin Winterkorn apologized in a statement Sunday for the fact that his company had "broken the trust of our customers and the public." VW has halted sales of some vehicles in the United States and pledged to cooperate with regulators in an investigation that could see the company fined up to $18 billion.

I think the second para sort of removes any 'suspicion'. One does not apologize for things that weren't done.

VW chief under fire after US emissions test rigging claims

[DanceswithUnix]

I would be stunned if this wasn't just a continuation of something they do in Europe to game the system here.

But then, I would also suspect that all the manufacturers are gaming the system. Perhaps governments need better rules.

[dturtill]

still very clever by VW and also no different then how other large companies alter data in there favour

[directhex]

http://techreport.com/review/3089/ho...mize-quake-iii

Plus ca change