VW 'Volkswagen Uses Software to increase Pollution'

[speedmd]

Most of these companies make one car for the entire world. Yes it is near impossible to rid the diesels of nitrogen oxides compared to petrol motors but either are bad deals on energy efficiency and should be phased out as soon as possible as batteries become more and more competitive cost wise.

We are dealing with corporate fraud. Plain and simple. You purchased organic wheat, paid a premium for it (3+k per car) only to get chemicals in your toast. It is not new with Das Fraudsters, having done this several times before going back as far as the early 1970's. We are not talking a little lie here. The cars run 35 -40 times the limit when driven down the road. They did the same thing in Europe. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34345210 It will be interesting to see how the various countries and states handle this.

Yes they go far on a gallon, but that does not excuse them as a comparable hybrid prius or any number of ev's does even better. I agree with comparison to the large stinker pick up trucks being much worse, but you can not fix stupid. Our only hope is to push them into running to clean standards also and force these fraudsters to follow it. US car/truck manufacturers are just as bad gaming the system. I don't see how VW will survive this. Not in the USA for certain. I hear crushers are back ordered. :lol:

 

[izeman]

what i wanted to say is: make the limit low enough and you won't be able to handle it.
if the US or CA in this case decide to set specially low limits for NOx which can easily be done by petrol engines than this cleary makes it hard for diesel engines which mostly come from german, french (negligable in the US) and italian (even more negigable in the US) car makers. so they are clearly cutting markets for those car makers.
on the other side it could be that those german car makers have such a good lobby here in europe that they can raise the NOx limits allowed in europe to a level that can be done by their cars. and they cheat in other markets.
who knows what's right and who follows which goals. and i'm not sure that all electric cars will solve our transportation problems but raise a lot of other problems.
any i still don't see why any US car buyer has any disadvantage?! they drive the very same car they bought and can enjoy high fuel efficiency every day. the pollution test sub routine does not apply to those cars but when the test is run. during normal use there should be no disadvantage.

 

[speedmd]

Employment is already taking a hit at VW. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/24/volkswagen-scandal-idUSF9N11E00D20150924

Decapitation is a good start with most all of them.

Low limits were exactly made for that reason, to make them run clean and not stink up places that can not handle the smog. It is a huge challenge, agree. But to market great engineering solutions, charge a premium for it, sponsor environmentally friendly sports markets while cheating the whole time is just too much. I have tons of friends (cyclists) that own these things and they are in utter shock over this. Lance Armstrong all over again.

 

[Lebowski]

What gripes me most about things like this.... Imagine you're a little car manufacturer and you're trying and spending lots of money on R&D to try and honestly meet
the requirements. Your cars are too expensive and have bad mileage because of this, your sales are not very good, your market share is low and you're really struggling.

In the mean time the @#$@$% at VW cannot shovel in the money fast enough because their car is the best on the market, due to the, lets be honest, criminal cheating.

In the mean time though your little car plant has gone bankrupt and you had to let the people go (most of whom worked for you for the last 20 years) .

This is why in my opinion no punishment is too high for VW.

 

[nutnspecial]

+1 Izeman. Totally.

Imo, could we live without corporations? Do people really understand their drawbacks? What in the world is the benefit to the real flesh and blood people on earth? Do people know the history and origin of these 'legal persons'?

Seems like that could start to really simplify things without them.
It would be easier to disassemble the illogical nature of pollution as it pertains across the board.

 

[Lebowski]

any i still don't see why any US car buyer has any disadvantage?! they drive the very same car they bought and can enjoy high fuel efficiency every day. the pollution test sub routine does not apply to those cars but when the test is run. during normal use there should be no disadvantage.

But I can imagine VW will be forced to make the cars to be within the law always, so the 'low pollution' must always be on. Which may increase fuel consumption or in any other way make the car more expensive to run.

 

[speedmd]

They can not fix it with just the on board systems they have in the cars. This is the point. It is not just a software fix. They will need to inject urea into the exhaust to break down the nitrogen oxides into nitrogen and water. No one has been able to meet the standards without doing this. They will most likely fail the EU standards also. Stay tuned.

Cars are the second largest purchase most will make in their lifetimes. Depreciation of these purchases is one of the largest costs of ownership. This kills the value of that valued purchase. It is buy back time for VW to make this right. I can see no other option in this case that will lessen their demise.

 

[nutnspecial]

The customers can stand up and refuse

 

[Lebowski]

The customers can stand up and refuse

Then the car will fail the next roadworthyness test, so it must be fixed or you may not drive it on the road anymore (this is how it works in EU)

 

[spinningmagnets]

Just saw a post that BMW may be guilty too...1/3rd of the BMWs in Europe are diesels (which I was surprised at).

Anything with computer controlled fuel injection can have a "dual mode" smog management. Its not so much that they want to pollute, its just that when tuned to run with the best possible power and fuel economy...the emissions are slightly worse. I am a big fan of bio-diesel because that kind of oil can be grown.

 

[speedmd]

It is getting much worse for the German auto industry as we write. Government officials knew about this. http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/09/24/german-ministers-reportedly-were-warned-vw-test-beating-software/ http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/0...ortedly-were-warned-vw-test-beating-software/

The old saying, the rich got that way the old fashioned way. They stole the money.

Another story on it.

http://fortune.com/2015/09/24/dieselgate-how-much-did-merkels-government-know/

Spinning. We are not talking a little less clean. Try 30 to 40 times the spec limit. Sort of like trying to tell the cop Luke's death bike 2.0 meets the 750w rule. :lol:

 

[spinningmagnets]

Try 30 to 40 times the spec limit

That is the question, what is the spec limit? It is the emissions specs from California that are the harshest in the nation, making them the harshest in the world. When a VW is running in "power + fuel economy" mode (meaning the polluting worse mode), they are still running very clean. When they are running "30 to 40 times the spec limit" they are running at a level that passes the European standard. There are way more diesel cars in Europe than in North America. Yet Europes air seems to be getting cleaner every year.

When it comes to polluting the worlds air, VW diesel cars aren't even in the top 100.

 

[speedmd]

They would fail EU standards (where they exist) also going buy what I have read so far. The EU ministers had a emergency meeting today. We will see what they decide. I could care less that they spew a bit more toxic gasses as they are super efficient which is good, but the folks that own these are going to take a huge financial hit if left to what VW will most likely propose. I don't see this ending well.

http://www.theicct.org/news/press-release-new-icct-study-shows-real-world-exhaust-emissions-modern-diesel-cars-seven-times

 

[nutnspecial]

I found this interesting.

French Foreign Minister says "500 days to climate chaos" . . . 501 days ago :x
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QDJb6fF8pg

 

[izeman]

so. is he wrong? weather behaves very strange for the past years. that's undenyable.

 

[Hillhater]

They would fail EU standards (where they exist) also going buy what I have read so far. The EU ministers had a emergency meeting today. .......

Well, they are Politicians, so they would have to have a meeting or they would be accused of ignoring the situation.
I would suspect their concern is more about how to avoid any major impact on VW , as it it a huge part of German/European economy and a major employer.
The last thing Europe wants is a big hit on their industrial performance .
...And from that same article you quoted....

The ICCT experts also found significant differences among the performance of all the vehicles tested, with a few vehicles performing substantially better than the others. “This supports the notion that the technologies for real-world clean diesels already exist”, says Dr. Vicente Franco, researcher at the ICCT and lead author of the study.

 

[nutnspecial]

so. is he wrong? weather behaves very strange for the past years. that's undenyable.

No idea, but isn't the the UN general concensus on manmade warming, and maybe it's been VW all along -this is the 'chaos'.
I've been looking for something drastic for 500 days, and this was the only thing I could think of lol, happening right around the 500th day
This is like the 1000th problem in my mind. Big deal imo.

Hopefully people keep their jobs, and 'we' can make better more logical freaking laws.

 

[rsilvers]

Here is a poll on "In light of the VW scandal, would you still buy a diesel car?"
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/23/would-you-still-buy-a-diesel-car.html

My take is that a diesel costs $5000 more, and you will never pay that back with the 20-30% fewer gallons they burn (was 30% with VW cheat, but will soon be 20%). Diesel used to be cheaper fuel, but not any more due to the special low-suphur blend. So diesel just doesn't make sense in the US.

A few weeks ago my friend was telling me how his VW diesel got almost 50 MPG and so it did made sense. Well, when VW fixes this, his MPG will drop to 40, and then diesel makes less sense.

So this cheating was the only reason why diesel was alive in the US to begin with.

 

[speedmd]

They would fail EU standards (where they exist) also going buy what I have read so far. The EU ministers had a emergency meeting today. .......

Well, they are Politicians, so they would have to have a meeting or they would be accused of ignoring the situation.
I would suspect their concern is more about how to avoid any major impact on VW , as it it a huge part of German/European economy and a major employer.
The last thing Europe wants is a big hit on their industrial performance .
...And from that same article you quoted....

The ICCT experts also found significant differences among the performance of all the vehicles tested, with a few vehicles performing substantially better than the others. “This supports the notion that the technologies for real-world clean diesels already exist”, says Dr. Vicente Franco, researcher at the ICCT and lead author of the study.

They did not test all vw's. I have been saying right from the get go that vw is to blame for their troubles by taking a short cut and cutting out the urea injection system. Diesel cars equipped with the system can possibly meet the NOx spec.. VW will most likely not have a chance without it. As far as reducing the impact to VW, its off 30%. A bit late. They most likely want to stay away from the pitch forks that will be coming for them once folks realize their cars are near worthless.

To the guys dragging the tired weather thread into this, stop it! Not relevant. We are talking corporate fraud, pollution, and violation of customers and the public's trust.

 

[Hillhater]

A few weeks ago my friend was telling me how his VW diesel got almost 50 MPG and so it did made sense. Well, when VW fixes this, his MPG will drop to 40, and then diesel makes less sense.
.

.?? Why do you assume his mileage will drop ?
..running cleaner may well mean burning less fuel.
It may well have other effects,..reduced performance, reliability/engine life, ?? Etc,...but I don't associate reduced emissions with burning more fuel !

There is obviously some "Arse covering". Going on in the EPA also, as they have been aware of this issue for a long time.

Officials at the California Air Resources Board and the EPA agreed in December of 2014 to allow a voluntary recall of the company's diesel cars to fix what Volkswagen insisted was a technical - and easily solved - glitch. The recall was rolled out nationally over a period of months.

On Wednesday, California Air Resources Board spokesman Dave Clegern confirmed the letters were part of that recall. "This is one of the fixes they presented to us as a potential solution. It didn't work," he said.

If they were in a position to agree to a solution last December, they would have been aware long before then.

Basicly, this is not a technical issue ( the technology exists to run clean diesels)...... but one of deception/ fraud with collusion on both sides. So it will end up being a legal wrangle with a financial solution !
The big winners out of that will be a bunch of US and German lawyers !

 

[rsilvers]

They most likely want to stay away from the pitch forks that will be coming for them once folks realize their cars are near worthless.

Why do you think the value will go down. If anything I would want to buy one with the cheat still in it to get whatever benefit VW got from it (more power or more MPG).

 

[rsilvers]

I thought emissions controls tended to reduce engine efficiency, but maybe they just reduce power.

Maybe there is no fix short of the urine tank. Coming up with a retro-fit for that sounds very expensive.

 

[speedmd]

The big winners in this will be EV manufacturers and everyone that likes to take a deep breath of clean air. Once they start digging into real on road performance, they will realize that the specs are so tight that most all diesels have a hard time meeting them full time without many elaborate expensive to build and maintain emission systems.

2016-17 has 11 or so new EV entries slated. Timing looks good.

 

[rsilvers]

I would do a Volt with a diesel-generator in it. Why use gasoline when the engine runs at a constant speed?

 

[Hillhater]

I
Maybe there is no fix short of the urine tank. Coming up with a retro-fit for that sounds very expensive.

Actually the 2016 VW diesel Golfs do already have a urea injection system fitted !
...but,..they have also been sighted in the scandle , ( and banned from sale ). since it seems VW may have programmed the urea system to back off after the emissions test is completed !! ...a real dumb ass move !

At this stage , VW would probable view a Urea retrofit to all the vehicles, as a major win/ "get out of jail" card !
Urea system retrofit has been costed at<$2k per car.
...but they will likely shoot for another software fix first.

Maybe VW should be forced to swap out all these diesels for Golf EVs ?