Volkswagen Group Massive Emissions Fraud Scheme

[cwerdna]

German Prosecutors Add Former VW CEO Martin Winterkorn To List Of 37 Dieselgate Suspects
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bertelschmi ... -suspects/

Volkswagen: 'New Dimension Of A Cheater Scandal" Unfolds
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bertelschmi ... al-unfolds

[SageBrush]

This cannot be right.
VW told us it was all the actions of one, maybe a couple, rogue engineers who are at fault.

[arnis]

This fraud has almost nothing to do with VolksWagen. It's the NEDC cycle EU uses that is absurd.
All readings (including CO2 and all other pollutants) are drawn from there.
But this cycle doesn't represent real life, not even close. Therefore all manufacturers who ever tested
their vehicles under NEDC cycle are... literally... stating incorrect values for emissions. Not just VW.
Even Tesla. Luckily they have no direct emissions. But there are emission if charged on dirty juice.

VW has a special case that in addition to what I just said, they made another modification.
But it doesn't really matter as everything is already in a deep s**t for years. Decade and something...
In short: on average, emissions are 7x off. With VW Dieselgate they were 40x off. Does it matter? No.

[SageBrush]

This fraud has almost nothing to do with VolksWagen. ... ...
In short: on average, emissions are 7x off. With VW Dieselgate they were 40x off. Does it matter?.

Is 40x equal to 7x ?
Were cheat devices found on the other cars ?

This all sounds like VW to me.

[arnis]

There are no devices on VW's as well. It is just software algorithm that changes engine behavior.

Do you see a difference between a killer who kills 7 babies per day and killer who kills 40 babies per day?
Now from there on. Do you understand the difference if I tell you that that one who kills 40 babies per day
actually is a doctor who injects lethal dose of sedative to all babies who are born with fatal defect that will torture
them for few weeks and then they will die. And the one that kills 7 babies does that because he just wants.

Regular people can't see and understand the real picture from far away. They stick their noses into shallow click-bait headlines,
get 300-500 bytes of information and then conclude everything from there, plus suppose everything they read was true.
This is how humans work. They need emotions and illusions that they "do the right thing". And we get those from click-baits,
that have just few paragraphs of black-and white information even a donkey can understand.

It is selfish what VW did but if we zoom out to well-to-wheel overall pollution then actually it was sensible decision,
just not legal. But law is just a law. Sometimes it is reasonable and necessary, sometimes it is not competent (Tesla not allowed
to sell directly, it is not ok to have an abortion, it is illegal to kill killers, must not kill cows because they are sacred etc).

The whole idea of you knowing what VW did is exactly what media wanted. What other manufacturers wanted.
And the fact that people never dig deep enough by default (they have life to live not to research what somebody did and why)
is just helping that. But I am disappointed that judges are shallow. That they "just read the instructions (aka laws)" and don't
even bother to understand them.

Like you. You understand that VW was 40x over the limit. But what kind of limit is that and why it is what it is.
Can you translate it to ppm? Can you translate it to real results. Do you know what everybody else is doing
to fit into that limit? I do, and it's sad. Sad because the whole point of the limit is... violated... legally.


True world is never black and white.

[GetOffYourGas]

Regular people can't see and understand the real picture from far away. They stick their noses into shallow click-bait headlines,
get 300-500 bytes of information and then conclude everything from there, plus suppose everything they read was true.
This is how humans work. They need emotions and illusions that they "do the right thing". And we get those from click-baits,
that have just few paragraphs of black-and white information even a donkey can understand.

sometimes it is not competent (Tesla not allowed
to sell directly, it is not ok to have an abortion, it is illegal to kill killers, must not kill cows because they are sacred etc).

Congratulations. You just proved that you are no exception to your rule on human nature.

[GRA]

Via GCR:

VW pleads guilty to felonies in diesel emission scandal

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/110 ... on-scandal

On Friday, Volkswagen pleaded guilty to three criminal charges related to its use of illegal "defeat device" software in diesel cars to cheat on emissions tests. Entry of the plea is the latest step toward resolving the criminal aspect of Volkswagen's diesel scandal in the U.S. A settlement between VW and the U.S. Justice Department was announced just under two months ago, calling for the automaker to plead guilty, pay $2.8 billion in criminal fines, and $1.45 billion in civil fines.

In Detroit, attorneys for both Volkswagen and the government asked U.S. District Court Judge Sean Cox to accept the guilty plea, and immediately sentence the carmaker, according to The Detroit News. But Cox said he would hold off sentencing—and with it, the final determination of fines—until April 21 because the offense was "very, very serious." Before issuing a sentencing decision, Cox is expected to consider an objection filed by an attorney for 300 affected VW diesel owners. . . .

[GRA]

Via ABG:

German prosecutors raid VW, Audi offices
Homes of Audi executives searched as well.

http://www.autoblog.com/2017/03/15/germ ... i-offices/

. . . Prosecutors have searched Volkswagen's Wolfsburg, Germany, headquarters, as well as Audi offices in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm and even the homes of some Audi executives, Reuters reports.

The raids, which coincided with Audi's annual earnings press conference, are related to 80,000 diesel vehicles with possible emissions cheat devices sold in the US between 2009 and 2015. European vehicles aren't part of this particular investigation. . . .

A related story, also via ABG:

Renault accused of 25 years of emissions cheating by French authorities

http://www.autoblog.com/2017/03/15/rena ... im-report/

Renault is facing some disconcerting news. The French anti-fraud agency DGCCRF says there are indications that the carmaker has falsified automotive emission test data – for the last 25 years. A French daily newspaper, Libération has published portions of the agency's report, which claims that Renault has, like Volkswagen, used a cheat device to modify the NOx emissions of its (diesel) vehicles.

Renault's problems stretch back much further than the Volkswagen scheme. The report says that the company's top brass, including CEO Carlos Ghosn, knew of the emissions falsifying the entire time, according to Deutsche Welle. . . .

[GRA]

Via GCR:

Modified European VW diesels 'undrivable,' say some owners

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/110 ... ome-owners

. . . some U.K. customers have had their cars updated, and they claim the results are not acceptable. . . .

According to a piece on the Honest John site, backed up by a recent article in The Guardian newspaper by an actual TDI owner, some owners in the U.K. feel their modified Volkswagen Tiguan TDIs are simply "undrivable."

About 1.2 million Volkswagen, Audi, and Skoda vehicles in the U.K. are subject to the recall, but it's voluntary, and there are no government penalties for not having it done. With reports of drivability problems on owner forums and in the media rising fast, according to the articles, many owners who've not yet had the updates are now questioning whether they should.

The Guardian was contacted by James Harrison, owner of a 2010 Volkswagen Golf TDI with the European-spec 1.6-liter turbodiesel engine. . . Harrison claims the car ... has become almost undriveable since the work was done.

“The car has begun to stall intermittently, and is difficult to restart. It used to go into ‘regeneration mode’ [whereby soot collected in a filter is burnt off at high temperature to leave only a tiny ash residue] a few times a year, but now does it on almost every journey.

"This is my wife’s car and is used to transport our two children. As far as I can see they have ruined a perfectly working car.”

Thus far, modifications have been approved in the U.S. for only one set of 2.0-liter 4-cylinder VW Group diesels: the 67,000 cars sold during the 2015 model year, which were fitted with the new EA288 diesel engine.

No reports of how those cars behave after the modifications have emerged, although EPA documents indicate that fuel economy and performance are expected to be unaffected. . . .

[DarthPuppy]

With Trump's rolling back the federal emission regulations, are all those VW diesels that VW has been buying back now perfectly legal to own and drive here in the U.S.? Of course, not in California, but elsewhere in the U.S., these might no longer be an issue from a legal point. From an environmental point, they are still a disaster. But VW was likely to ship them to overseas markets with less stringent rules, so the solution was really to relocate the polluter to another area, which isn't really a solution.