German Big 3 automakers emissions cheating disaster Master Thread

IS-SV

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^ Unfortunately Audi and VW are essentially same company, including from a standpoint of corporate culture/business ethics and concern for environment. No different than Hyundai and Kia (from corporate view) when they intentionally published overstated gas mileage ratings.
 
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If you drive a TDI in Portland, OR...

http://jalopnik.com/of-course-this-angry-note-to-a-volkswagen-tdi-owner-is-1733403658
11950440_749097788553812_1833491260_n.jpg
 

mmcartalk

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If you drive a TDI in Portland, OR...

The person (s) who posted that sign probably didn't bother to stop and think that trees had to be cut down and processed to make the paper for it, also detracting from the environment like diesel pollution.

One has to be careful when tossing stones at others......some of them may end up coming back. ;):p
 

Och

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http://www.theweek.co.uk/jeremy-clarkson/62887/jeremy-clarkson-comes-to-the-defence-of-volkswagen

Jeremy Clarkson springs to the defence of Volkswagen

VW has merely engaged in some 'well-intentioned and harmless cheating' says Clarkson as emissions scandal rumbles on

Jeremy Clarkson has taken time out from working on his new Amazon motoring show to come to the defence of Volkswagen, the German car company currently embroiled in a scandal over its diesel-engine emissions tests.

According to Clarkson, the company's senior management should "stop wringing their hands and sweating in press conferences and go on the attack."

The whole issue has come about, Clarkson said in his column for The Sunday Times yesterday, due to "eco-mentalists" telling people first that diesel engines were less polluting than other engines before changing their minds and drawing attention to the damaging properties of the blend of nitrogen and oxygen – or NOX – the engines produced.

Various "soft-in-the-head governments" listened to those critiques and introduced new regulations on how much NOX a car could produce, Clarkson notes.

The new rules left VW with no choice but to redesign its engines, but the company went further and "fitted its engines with a clever bit of software that exaggerated their economy and cleanliness when they were being tested."

According to Clarkson, the trick is no different to everyday deceptions like lying on a CV or parking on double yellow lines.

As he sees it though, the risks to car makers and indeed Europe as a whole are huge if VW is "driven into the wilderness" by lawsuits, fines and damage to the company's reputation and sales. Because if VW goes out of business "the fallout would be immense because it owns Audi, Bugatti, Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche, Seat and Skoda as well. So they'd also go to the wall.

"And without the profits from these engineering powerhouses Germany would no longer be in a position to bail out the Greeks or house half of Syria. Which would cause global economic collapse, a humanitarian catastrophe and many plagues."

Clarkson says that in his view what the company has done simply isn't that bad, so the punishment does not fit the crime.

"Put simply, then, Volkswagen looked at a set of arbitrary figures that had been dreamt up by a bunch of ill-informed, woolly-headed government officials and chose to ignore them. We are not talking about thalidomide here. Or Bhopal. It’s just a bit of good-natured rule-bending, and we all do that."

The 55-year-old presenter says that the whole issue is "rubbish" because "about 60 per cent of man-made NOX emissions do not come from road transport, and of the 40 per cent that do, the vast majority are from lorries and buses. So in the big scheme of things, your neighbour's Golf diesel makes no discernible difference."

Clarkson's claims on issues relating to pollution and the environment have been repudiated frequently by scientists and campaigners.

Bill McGuire, professor of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL described the presenter's Sunday Times columns as "barely coherent products of Clarkson's own fevered imagination".

Clarkson's view that VW has merely engaged in "well-intentioned and harmless cheating" sits in contrast with the official position of the governments of the US, Germany, UK, Switzerland, Italy, France, South Korea, Canada, Norway and India where investigations and legal proceedings are now underway.






 

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IS-SV

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He's amusing, and speaking of going "soft", he's going soft in all the wrong places. Maybe he should collaborate with Trump, lol.

What "punishment does not fit the crime" is he talking about, because other than stop sales, no punishment has been delivered so far.
 

mmcartalk

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He's amusing, and speaking of going "soft", he's going soft in all the wrong places.

What "punishment does not fit the crime" is he talking about, because other than stop sales, no punishment has been delivered so far.

Yes, among some others, that part I don't agree with him on, either.....it's true that no official punishment, at least, has been meted out.....although VW has indeed taken a hit on the stock market and in the court of at least some pubic opinion.

Maybe he should collaborate with Trump, lol.

Unless I just missed it (which is possible) I don't think Trump has actually spoken out on this matter either way, at least in public.
 
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IS-SV

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Yes, among some others, that part I don't agree with him on, either.....it's true that no official punishment, at least, has been meted out.....although VW has indeed taken a hit on the stock market and in the court of at least some pubic opinion.


Unless I just missed it (which is possible) I don't think Trump has actually spoken out on this matter either way, at least in public.

Yes, VW stock price crash and negative public opinion was largely self-inflicted, not government punishment. Good companies trying to increase shareholder value and improve public perception usually do not intentionally commit fraud and break laws in several countries for a period of 6 years.

No I don't think you missed any comments from Trump on the VW fiasco, it was just a weak joke, kinda like his pres run...
 

mmcartalk

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Yes, VW stock price crash and negative public opinion was largely self-inflicted, not government punishment.


Just FYI (and as you predicted, Mike)..........VW stock took another dive. It's down to $95 now. Late last week, it looked like it was starting to stabilize for a few days around $107-108, but no dice.
 

IS-SV

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Just FYI (and as you predicted, Mike)..........VW stock took another dive. It's down to $95 now. Late last week, it looked like it was starting to stabilize for a few days around $107-108, but no dice.

No surprise, the word "stabilize" and VW don't go well together today.

CFO has his hands full, they will have difficult financial crisis to deal with no matter what the stock trades at.
 

Och

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This is kinda off topic, but related. I've been thinking about something - it is often said that many petrol cars from the 90ies would not pass todays emissions regulations. Even the cars that already had EGR, Catalyst and EFI in the 90ies apparently produce a lot more emissions than modern cars. But I wonder if this is actually true in real life, and not some clever manipulation. AFAIK, not much has changed in the emissions control since the introduction of the systems I mentioned. And I have a feeling that current direct injected turbo cars are a lot dirtier than they claim to be, especially once they rack up substantial mileage on the ODO.

I wouldn't be surprised if EPA opens up a huge can of worms and mandates SCR systems on petrol cars in the future as well.
 

IS-SV

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^ Yes, and that's why CA for example monitors (remaining) cars from 80's/90's still driven on road, in case programs are needed to purge more. Obviously age/attrition already reduced their numbers drastically in the higher population/higher income areas naturally.

SCR is unlikely to be needed for gas DI engines. What is more likely and quite cost-effective is a simple Particulate Filter for under $100. Other design changes can reduce DI particulate emissions too. The load a gasoline DI puts on a particulate filter is minor compared to what happens with diesel particulate filter (DPF) . Agencies regulating air pollution are already aware of DI gasoline engines and fine particulate matter. (VW wishes it's challenges today were only the gasoline DI issue)
 
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mmcartalk

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This is kinda off topic, but related. I've been thinking about something - it is often said that many petrol cars from the 90ies would not pass todays emissions regulations. Even the cars that already had EGR, Catalyst and EFI in the 90ies apparently produce a lot more emissions than modern cars. But I wonder if this is actually true in real life, and not some clever manipulation. AFAIK, not much has changed in the emissions control since the introduction of the systems I mentioned. And I have a feeling that current direct injected turbo cars are a lot dirtier than they claim to be, especially once they rack up substantial mileage on the ODO.

I wouldn't be surprised if EPA opens up a huge can of worms and mandates SCR systems on petrol cars in the future as well.


However they fine-tune the numbers, I don't think there's much question that today's cars, in general, pollute a lot less today than they did years ago. In cities lacking heavy smokestack industries and where vehicles do most of the air-pollution (the D.C. area where I live is an example), there are generally fewer Code-Orange and Code-Red smog days now than there were decades ago, even when there were many fewer vehicles on the road. That the number of vehicles in and around major cities can increase like they have (there are probably two or three times the number of cars in the D.C. area than back when I learned to drive 45 years ago), while at the same time, the average quality of the air has actually improved, to me, is remarkable. It testifies to the effectiveness of most emission controls (the VW scandal notwithstanding, of course).
 

Och

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^ Yes, and that's why CA for example monitors (remaining) cars from 80's/90's still driven on road, in case programs are needed to purge more. Obviously age/attrition reduces their numbers in the high population/higher income areas naturally.

SCR is unlikely to be needed for gas DI engines. What is more likely and quite cost-effective is a simple Particulate Filter for under $100. The load a gasoline DI puts on a particulate filter is minor compared to what happens with diesel particulate filter (DPF). Agencies regulating air pollution are already aware of DI gasoline engines and fine particulate matter. (VW wishes it's challenges today were only the gasoline DI issue)

On a different not, if they added SCR to petrol engines, but in return could get rid of EGR and PCV so we wouldn't have all the crazy carbon build up issues.
 

mmcartalk

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On a different not, if they added SCR to petrol engines, but in return could get rid of EGR and PCV so we wouldn't have all the crazy carbon build up issues.


Carbon buildup, in many cases (depending on exactly where the buildup is), can be controlled or eliminated by using a good name-brand fuel with a good detergent additive and periodically adding a can of BG-44K. (I myself use either Shell, or, if available, Chevron/Techroline).
 

IS-SV

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On a different not, if they added SCR to petrol engines, but in return could get rid of EGR and PCV so we wouldn't have all the crazy carbon build up issues.

That's a bit too offtopic for this diesel VW thread.

But in short, the better automakers in 2015 have figured out at least 2 or 3 ways to not have carbon buildup problems with gasoline DI engines. From an engineering standpoint, it probably wasn't a huge challenge.

VW meeting latest EPA regs was a challenge without SCR, so they elected to just cheat instead. Bad business. And the filthy air in London and Paris just illustrates what diesel critics were saying for years, with VW as poster child company.