VW in big trouble

Ratbag

Ratbag

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The test cycles are a joke anyway, far from indicative of average driving.

Wonder how many other makers are doing it.

Also, thanks for the shares tip.
I'll wait till it bottoms out then buy a few thousand
 
^ be that as it may, it is appalling that one of the largest companies in the world has behaved in such a disgraceful manner.

Like you, I wonder if others are also involved in this, and if so, how widespread the practice is.

We have to care for our planet, not engage in criminal activity to avoid the plain purpose of the laws to protect it ... Nothing is ever perfect, but this is just rotten :puke:
 
Reading further into it, there's really only 2 options to achieve what they're claiming.

1) Turn off EGR when not in test. Hard to physically look for as it's ll in the ECU programming, not such a diabolical thing as you've still got a DPF and CAT to do it's job.

2) Bypass DPF and/ or CAT, you'd see this in the exhaust pretty easily, and there would be an electronic butterfly upstream of the filters. Also, not as diabolical as it seems. so many different models of "passenger" cars are not using a DPF anyway.
All our big diesel trucks don't have them, or most 4x4 vehicles.

I think the US needs to look a bit closer to home on what their big polluters are.
Have a look at what they build in their own country, F350, Dodge RAM, Chevy trucks
all with 7 Litre diesels no apparently no regs at all....


3104109432_74332f86dd_o.jpg
 
So far as I am aware it involves only the USA diesels (to now that is ... but watch this space).
Whether it is all diesels or "only" some is also unclear - we have a twin turbo 2 litre T5 but other iterations of that engine are single turbo & non turbo.
Oh yes, and lookout Audi and Skoda diesels, too!
Last report on the share price was "one third" wiped.
Wonder what the German equivalent of Hara-Kiri is?
 
So the calm investor will be just waiting for the share price drop to hit 40% to chuck a few thousands at it and watch it climb all the way back in a couple months?
 
Tell you what though, they've had a huge drop since march anyway
 
Ratbag said:
^ be that as it may, it is appalling that one of the largest companies in the world has behaved in such a disgraceful manner.

Like you, I wonder if others are also involved in this, and if so, how widespread the practice is.

We have to care for our planet, not engage in criminal activity to avoid the plain purpose of the laws to protect it ... Nothing is ever perfect, but this is just rotten :puke:
Click to expand...

I totally agree.

Oh, and it is 11,000,000 vehicles worldwide, this is no longer about the US only (though it is here that the fines can be draconian).

Btw, I think that Subaru now sells more than VW in the US anyway!

As for the amount, I would forget the 18 bln USD number floated around. That is simply the maximum possible fine.
 
pezimm said:
So the calm investor will be just waiting for the share price drop to hit 40% to chuck a few thousands at it and watch it climb all the way back in a couple months?
Click to expand...

Yeah, this is what I wanted to do with airline stock in 2006-7, but had no money to invest...however, this VW case is not going away in a couple of months...
 
Germany's economic and employment (lack of workers) prospects aren't the best either, there is more than just underhanded dealings with ecu's at VW's stock fall.
 
This is sickening:

"In other words, the Guardian says, by programming its cars to cheat on their emissions tests, Volkswagen introduced as much pollution to the atmosphere as if it had built 25 exact replicas of Western Europe’s largest power plant, and let them all run around the clock, invisible to regulators and the public."

https://fusion.net/story/202422/the...candal-is-a-new-low-in-corporate-malfeasance/

It is one thing to cause damage because people have let you do it, it is quite another to do it WHILE TELLING US HOW RESPONSIBLE YOU ARE AND WHAT GREAT ADVANCES YOU ARE MAKING towards a cleaner future.

While it is possible that government regulations are getting too far ahead of what is realistic, this leaves me at a loss for words. 500,000 vehicles would have been wrong and bad, but 11,000,000...
 
Old mate at the Guardian is also quoting absolute worst case figures here

According to a Guardian analysis, the 482,000 non-compliant US vehicles would have released between 10,392 and 41,571 tonnes of NOx annually at an average US mileage, rather than the 1,039 tonnes the EPA standards would imply.

Scaled to the 11m global vehicles, that would mean up to 948,691 tonnes of NOx emissions annually. Western Europe’s biggest power station, Drax in the UK, emits 39,000 tonnes of NOx each year.

Taking the conservative look at it.. (10,392 tonnes)
which is 25% of 41,571 tonnes.
So globally, as low as 237,000 tonnes.

And all of this implies that the cars are dirven around like they're in a test cycle....
which is far removed from any real world driving anywhere on the planet
 
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Good points!

I did not go into details, but I think that Guardian figure is supposed to reflect real-world driving data. The California agency, the story goes, drove a Jetta and a Passat around continuously once they found discrepancies. They did that until they figured out that the cars are cleaner when cold, which, by being very surprising, prompted further investigation.

So, I think it is fair to take the middle number.

But, even at the lowest one, the extra pollution would amount to the equivalent of several giant power stations...
 
Sorry, Rob, but I cannot see how you arrive at 237 tonnes from these figures ... :poke: :confused: ...
 
oops, 237,000, .
but still 1/4 of the worst case scanario that the sensationalist Guardian reporter liked to quote
 
^ Ah, the glorious media giving a range of 10x to 40x the EPA allowed figure is an overstatement of the scope of the problem, but getting the maths wrong by 1000-fold is OK??
Not taking a potshot at you.

My point is that whatever the scope of the problem is, the behaviour itself is inexcusable at law and ethically.

I note that Mr Winterkorn his fallen on his sword today. Hopefully, he does not automatically avoid whatever personal responsibility he has at law. VW appears to be pushing the view that he is blameless ...

I am incredulous that the Drax power station is allowed to emit NOx. It is my understanding that all coal fired power stations here are required to have effective NOx scrubbers. However, I cannot substantiate this assertion.
 
It is pretty shocking, I can see a big law suit on the horizon.
 
VW share price has fallen 35% so far this week.

Both public and private (class actions) legal proceedings are going through the roof world wide.

This is already really ugly, and is going to get far worse. A very sad thing to happen.
 
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