Guest Post by Eric Peters
This could kill VW – until recently (until last week) the world’s largest car company.
But unlike say the exploding Pinto fiasco this is not a story about defective cars. It is a story about defective public policy.
None of the VW cars now in the crosshairs are unreliable, dangerous or shoddily built. They were simply programmed to give their owners best-case fuel economy and performance. Software embedded within each vehicle’s computer – which monitors and controls the operation of the engine – would furtively adjust those parameters slightly to sneak by emissions tests when the vehicle was plugged in for testing. But once out on the road, the calibrations would revert to optimal – for mileage and performance.
Now, the hysterical media accounts of the above make it seem that the alteration via code of the vehicles’ exhaust emissions was anything but slight. Shrill cries of up to “40 times” the “allowable maximum” echo across the land.
Well, true.
But, misleading.
Because not defined – put in context.
What is the “allowable maximum”?
It is a very small number.
Less than 1 percent of the total volume of the car’s exhaust. We are talking fractions of percentages here. Which is why talk of “40 percent” is so misleading and, frankly, deliberately dishonest.
Left out of context, the figure sounds alarming. As in 40 percent of 100 percent.
As opposed to 40 percent of the remaining unscrubbed 1-3 percent or .05 percent or whatever it is (depending on the specific “harmful” byproduct being belabored).
The truth – explained rarely, for reasons that will become obvious – is that the emissions of new cars (and recent-vintage cars) have been so thoroughly cleaned up they hardly exist at all. Catalytic converters (and especially “three way” catalytic converters with oxygen sensors) and fuel injection alone eliminated about two-thirds of the objectionable effluvia from the exhaust stream – and they’ve been around since the 1980s. Most of the remaining third was dealt with during the ’90s, via more precise forms of fuel delivery (port fuel injection replaced throttle body fuel injection) and more sophisticated engine computers capable of real-time monitoring and adjustment of parameters, and of alerting the vehicle’s owner to the need for a check (OBD II).
Since the late ’90s/early 2000s, the industry has been chasing diminishing returns. The remaining 3 percent or so of the exhaust stream that’s not been “controlled.”
You may begin to see the problem here.
Internal combustion is always going to produce some emissions. The engineers have picked the low hanging (and mid-hanging) fruit. But the EPA insists on what amounts to a zero emissions internal combustion engine.
Which, of course, is impossible.
Which may be just the point.
Set unattainable standards – then denounce the victim for “noncompliance.”
VW’s sin was trying to get diesels that people would want to buy into the showrooms. These would be diesels that went farther than an otherwise-equivalent gas-engined car on a gallon of fuel to offset the higher up-front cost of buying the diesel-powered vehicle. Or at least, far enough – relative to the gas-engined equivalent – to justify the price premium.
People also expected – demanded – that the vehicles perform. That they accelerate when the accelerator is pushed.
VW set the calibrations to deliver those things. The operating characteristics its customers want.
VW is in hot water because of that. Because it put customers – rather than government – first.
No one has alleged that any of the “affected” vehicles runs poorly. The fact is they run better than they would have if VW had set the calibrations to appease the implacable EPA.
Which will never be appeased until we’re all driving $60,000 “zero emissions” electric cars we can’t afford. Which will put most of us into public (that is, government) transport. If we’re transported at all. Probably, we’ll be herded into urban cores, stacked like proles – for the sake of “the environment.”
It is a tragedy of stupidity and maliciousness and engineering ignorance.
Consider, for instance, the fact that if it were not for federal “safety” mandates, VW (and other car companies) would be able to sell vehicles hundreds of pounds lighter than the current average. Which, in turn, would allow for smaller engines – which burn less fuel. Which, in turn produce a lesser volume of exhaust. Even if a hypothetical 1,600 pound ultra-light vehicle’s exhaust stream were, let’s say, 2 percent “dirtier” than a current 2,300 pound EPA (and DOT) approved “safety” car’s, if the ultra-light burns 40 percent less fuel, its total output is still much lower than then government-approved car’s.
But such cars (the ultra-lights) have – effectively – been legislated out of existence.
At the same time, the cars that may still be manufactured are required to meet increasingly unattainable standards, putting the manufacturers (like VW) in the position of manufacturing government-compliant cars that cost too much and perform poorly that few will want to buy… or “cheating” the government, in order to build cars people will actually want to buy.
What’s happening to VW could have come right out of Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s cumbersome but nonetheless predictive novel of 50 years ago. VW cast as the real-life version of Rearden Steel.
Some inside baseball: Mazda has been trying to get its Sky-D diesel engine EPA-compliant (while also customer-viable) for the past two years, without success so far. You are denied this 50-plus MPG (and extremely clean) diesel because of the particulate jihadists in Washington.
Remember: In neither case (VW or Mazda) are we talking about a return to the LA of the early ’70s, a feasting on lead chip paints and bathing in DDT. It’s all a bogey at this point. A straw man. A phantom, meant to scare you. But it has no reality.
The “emissions problem” has been solved – decades ago. But the EPA, et al, cannot admit this.
Because then there’d be no need for the EPA.
Dear Volkswagen: This Was Your Biggest Mistake
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Sell me one and California will never smell my exhaust (or NYC or WDC).
To me, this VW fiasco isn’t about the “OMG 40x the limit! the sky is falling think of the children!” type reaction it is about a company that practices large scale deception and then enacts a covr up when caught. VW is in no way Reardon Steel.
I agree the EPA limits are low and that even a million VW diesels will not pollute like a much smaller number of old dump trucks or semi trucks, so for me this isn’t about the environment it is a matter of not being able to trust a corporation therefore I would not buy any of their products. To say they lied to us for our own benefit is laughable. I wonder if Eric Peters drives a VW and is sufferering from Stockholm Syndrome.
What do you think the odds are that GM, Ford, and Chrysler have done the exact same thing?
In DC, money talks, so I will go with the Admin comment – GM is getting favoritism due to its lobbying influence ($$$$$$$$$$$$$).
We have the best politicians money can buy.
Anyone who tells the EPA to go fuck themselves has my admiration.
Volkswagen Scandal Becomes “Investor’s Nightmare” As German Government Dragged In
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/23/2015 09:01 -0400
Over the past two days, we’ve spent quite a bit of time documenting the emissions scandal that’s rocked Volkswagen, sending its shares down more than 30% (see here, here, and here for instance).
Far from representing an isolated, “contained” event, revelations that the company used software to game diesel emissions tests have the very real potential to reverberate throughout the German economy.
As we explained on Tuesday, Volkswagen Group is the largest automaker in Germany and it is also the largest German company by revenue. In case the implications of that for Germany’s export machine are in any way unclear, allow us to elaborate:
While banking may be the most important sector to the hyper-financialized US economy, for the export-driven German economy – whose exports account for over 40% of GDP – it is all about the car companies and their massive supply chains.
So what happened over the past 48 hours to Volkswagen, which has lost over a third of its market cap, or more than the market cap of Tesla, is nothing short of an earthshattering cataclysm to an economy where all the cogs and gears and running in a smooth, undisturbed ensemble… until everything changed overnight.
Throw in the fact that the industry is already threatened by the deceleration in China’s economy, and you have a veritable nightmare scenario in the making and for anyone who thinks we may be going overboard with the hyperbole, we present the following from Deutsche Bank (another German company that’s quite adept at gaming regulators), out Wednesday:
An investor’s nightmare: uncertainty on all levels.
After VW lost c. €30bn of its market value in 2 days, it might strike as a buying opportunity. However, we stress that the full magnitude of the emission scandal is likely to remain uncertain for much longer. So far we conclude that1) the legal fines will be painful, impossible to quantify and potentially remain a topic for years & that 2) the impact on the operational business poses even higher risks for future cash flows. We cut our EPS ests materially over 2015- 2017 accounting for a €5bn legal fine, recall costs, lower growth and pricing pressure from brand damage (2%). Any €1bn additional fine would take away €2.02 per share.
Last Friday VW came under attack for having deliberately misled regulators by equipping their engines with ‘hidden’ software. Initially the US regulator spoke about 500k vehicles with a maximum fine of $18bn or $37.5k per car. Today VW stated that they see globally some 11 million cars impacted. History has shown that with recalls the first ‘confessions’ are rarely the end of it. Our current base case is that VW will face about €5bn in legal fees/ residual impairment.
We think the impact on the operational business – namely volumes, residual values, pricing and costs – is even harder to estimate and is the key concern here. A main element of our buy case had been significant cost cuts. We now believe that rising costs for diesel cars will offset most of the effects. Most importantly, we have taken a more cautious stance on the growth outlook for VW and Audi and believe pricing will come under pressure due to the reputational damage. Consequently, we cut our 2015-2017 earnings by up to 35%. We further include the €6.5bn provision already announced. We note several countries have already indicated consequences VW cars if cheating is discovered and in Germany for example all relevant cars will now be tested.
Risks: what we cannot put in numbers (yet)…
…1) further law suits; 2) a need for further disposals or even equity measures; 3) management changes where we expect a decision over the next days
Of course this is the sellside we’re talking about here which means that somehow, Deutsche Bank managed to get a “Hold” rating out of all that (apparently even companies the bank thinks represent “an investor’s nightmare” don’t deserve to be sold), but you get the idea.
Meanwhile, the scandal looks as though it may end up ensnaring Germany’s transport ministry. Here’s FT:
In a written response to a question from the Green party, the German transport ministry said: “The federal government is aware of [defeat devices], which have the goal of [test] cycle detection.”
The Greens asked if the ministry was aware of the deployment of defeat device software in new vehicles, and it replied: “We have no knowledge of this.”
There was no specific question about VW and defeat device software from the Greens and the ministry did not refer to the company.
However, the ministry answered the question on July 28, prompting accusations that Berlin had been aware of the potential for cheating in the industry for months.
Oliver Krischer, a German Green party lawmaker, said: “The federal government admitted in July, to an inquiry from the Greens, that the [emissions] measurement practice had shortcomings. Nothing happened.
“The VW emissions scandal is the result of a politics in which environmental and consumer protection plays no role and every trick and means of cheating is accepted with a wink.”
Now obviously, being aware of the potential for cheating and having knowledge of actual cheating are two entirely different things. That is, cheating is always theoretically possible in any industry that’s subject to regulatory oversight so in one sense, the German transport ministry really didn’t say anything at all. On the other hand, recall that, as Theo Vermaelen, a finance professor at INSEAD put it earlier this week, “if it looks like it’s more companies, not just Volkswagen, it would be a major problem for the German car industry, and the German economy overall.” When viewed through the lens of the potential effect on the German economy, it seems at least possible that someone in Berlin had instructions to protect the country’s economic interests at the possible expense of the environment.
In a testament to just how critical the company is in Germany, residents of Wolfsburg (where VW funds everything from the university to the soccer club) fear their town may be headed for a Detroit-like death spiral. Here’s more from Bloomberg:
Nowhere is Volkswagen AG’s widening emissions scandal being felt more acutely than in Wolfsburg, the ultimate company town in Germany.
Here, a hundred miles west of Berlin, VW funds the university, runs the biggest museum and owns the local soccer club, which is competing against some of the best teams in the world in the Champions League.
“If you’d visualize traffic in and out of the city, it would look like a pulse and the heart is the VW plant,” cab driver Karsten Raabe says as he steers his Skoda by the sprawling complex, where hundreds of gleaming cars sit in parking lots and on the back of freight trains. “Without VW, this city and the entire region would die. We’d become a European Detroit,”
More than seven decades after the Nazis built Wolfsburg from scratch to make the original ‘people’s car,’ VW employs about 72,000 people in the city of 125,000. The company’s annual sales have quadrupled over the past two decades to 202 billion euros ($225 billion). The boom has helped drive unemployment down to 4.9 percent, well below the national average.
Even the main tourist attraction is a tribute to VW: Autostadt, a 28-hectare theme park with road-safety tracks and vintage cars that was completed in 2000 for about 400 million euros. And then there are the 7.8 million VW-branded sausages that are made in Wolfsburg and sold nationwide each year.
‘Black Monday’
On Tuesday at Saloniki, a wood-paneled tavern near the central station, six men heatedly debated VW’s admission that it cheated on U.S. emissions tests, sparking an investigation that has wiped about 25 billion euros off the company’s market value.
“Black Monday for VW” read the front-page headline of the local newspaper sprawled on the bar in front of them.
And as we explained on Tuesday, it’s not just VW and it’s not just the German auto industry that are at risk – it’s the entire supply chain.
Finally, because no scandal at a publicly traded company would be complete without a healthy dose of market manipulation and/or insider trading, BaFin has now launched a “routine” probe into trading activity in VW shares (just seven years, we might add, after the regulator looked into how it happened that Volkswagen briefly became the most valuable company on the face of the planet after its shares surged to €1,000 one Tuesday during the depths of the financial crisis).
The “watchdog” (and we use that term very loosely in light of BaFin’s half-hearted investigation of Anshu Jain) is also looking into the timing of the company’s disclosures. Via WSJ:
Germany’s financial watchdog BaFin on Wednesday said it is investigating possible trading irregularities in Volkswagen AG shares, and whether the car maker was obliged to disclose information regarding its emissions scandal sooner than it did after its shares dropped sharply over the past two days.
BaFin, the German securities supervisor based in Frankfurt, is examining market developments for indications of potential insider trading or other manipulation. A BaFin spokeswoman said this is a “routine” probe with no foregone conclusions. As part of the investigation, Volkswagen will be asked to what extent the executive board knew about the emissions issue, and when individuals knew, she said.
The watchdog is also probing the timing of news disclosure, since market-relevant information is supposed to be disclosed immediately.
So there you have it: an unadulterated disaster that threatens to engulf everyone from assembly line workers in Wolfsburg to officials in Berlin and which has the potential cripple Europe’s economic engine just as the German auto industry is marking an extremely difficult transition towards a world where double-digit growth in China is no longer realistic.
We shall see, going forward, if this is just the excuse the ECB needs to expand PSPP or whether perhaps – just perhaps – air pollution ends up being the proximate cause for Mario Draghi to drag the depo rate further into NIRPdom, triggering retaliatory cuts in Sweden and ultimately in Switzerland where, we might add, the air is famously clean.
I guess we will all find out really soon if the rest of the industry was doing this also. That will affect my judgment of VW.
One of the reasons European cars get so much better mileage than ours do is their lower (and more realistic) emission standards.
Another reason and the reason why their cares cost much less in Europe than here is the more reasonable safety standards there.
Cars like the 80 mpg Turbodiesel Fort Focus will be common in Europe but you won’t see them on the roads here since they cannot be made to perform like that and meet U.S. emission and safety standards.
FWIW, with those lower emission and safety standards in Europe I don’t see more air quality problems or carnage on the highways there than I do here.
So… in light of Jim’s post about the importance of VW to the Germany economy, should we view this purely as an automaker scandal, or as a way of harming Germany overall, perhaps in retaliation for its dancing with Russia a year or two ago?
Between this and the invasion of “refugees” it rather sucks to be a native German right now.
@Admin: I don’ t think GM has the technical expertise to pull something like this off and I don’t think Ford would have the balls to do it.
I do know that if I owned one of the affected VWs there is no way I’d take it into the dealer…ever. Because when it goes in and gets re-flashed it will drive worse.
People can be annoyed by the deception but they are full of themselves, they were decieved to so the govt could stop interfering with providing the customers with what they wanted. The real eception is that the govt and more specifically the EPA exist to serve and protect us. Isnt the epa busy unfucking the rivers they pollute?
This whole scandal makes me respect VW more, anyone who modifes cars does something close to this. someone (who will remain nameless) has performance cars, they mod it (intake, higher flow cat, mod ecu map etc) and drive it that way for 99% of the year and spent a few hours before the annual inspection resetting it to stock and then a few more hours afterward setting back to optimum after the stupid govt sticker is in place is doing the exact same thing, only vw was nice enough to automate the process. “Some people” pay extra for this form of functionality and features.
If i had a long commute id be looking to buy one of the recalled diesel jettas cheap before they get “fixed” and then drive it, making sure it is never “fixed.”
The most telling thing for me is this, there are talks that the fine for vw could be up to 18 billion dollars. That is fucking insane. GM knowingly killed over 100 people and they get hit up for 900 million but vw will be hit up for an order of magnitude more. Why? Partly because GM is Govt Motors but its largely because the govt doesnt give a fuck about you, your loved ones, they care infinitely more about their rules being followed. We are all collatral damage.
None of the automakers should pull shit like this. If the emissions standards are ridiculously strict and mess up performance and efficiency (which I assume is true), they should bitch about the standards publicly and make Americans pick – efficiency or strict emissions standards. Playing these kind of games only encourages government to set ever more ridiculous standards. On a side note, CAFE standards should not exist.
At the very least, both the EPA and NHTSA standards need to be set to match Europe’s.
Here is a 500 dollar voucher for your 40k VW. This is a photo of what we have available for you (satellite photos of unsold cars) pick one.
The EPA is watching out for the health of our environment and therefore, our health.
OK, I said it. Send my check to:
Fuck the EPA
I don’t know if VW broke a JUST law. What we need to remember is that corporations,government,churches and political parties do not commit crimes. People commit crimes. When they commit crimes they should go to prison. Except in rare showcase trials like the peanut butter executive it doesn’t happen. The law is used by politicians to extort money from whoever has it.
Admins first comment says it all in a cynical but realistic nutshell.
Could this be a veiled attempt for a government takeover of VW? Hmm think GM and Chrysler…. so how many auto manufacturers are now government controlled??
The SUVW pictured is a Touareg TDI V-6 and not the one in the recall, its the smaller diesel, or so I was told.
I called yesterday. The SUVW pictured is my car and color, and I love it.
Like always, there are no heroes, no white knights here. VW is a company…they want to make money. The USG is a black hole…they want to have at least one finger in literally every pie on the planet. The average consumer wants everything even if it is impossible to engineer. Let the finger pointing and bullshitting begin.
I also wonder about the timing of this in a geopolitical sense….might this be a backhanded bitchslap or warning to the German government.?
hmmm
looks like this sort of thing has been pretty common
Whistleblowers: Not just VW cheating
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/23/1424112/-Whistleblowers-Not-just-VW-cheating
The government really needs to be focusing their energy on the d-bags in their bro-trucks who are spewing carcinogenic black smoke out of their dual stacks of their modified duramax, Cummins, or powerstroke trucks.
by Karl Denninger
See, It IS All About Cheating
Yep…
Volkswagen says that an internal investigation has revealed that 11 million of its vehicles sold worldwide are fitted with the same software designed to trick emissions-testing equipment as the 500,000 vehicles involved in an emerging scandal in the United States.
This is not limited to the US; it is worldwide. Specifically:
The company then admitted that it intentionally installed software programmed to switch engines to a cleaner mode during official emissions testing. The software then switches off again, enabling cars to drive more powerfully on the road while emitting as much as 40 times the legal pollution limit.
Let me recap: NOx (which is the pollutant in question) is formed from the high temperature of combustion, in the presence of oxygen and nitrogen (both of which are inherently present in an engine’s air charge.) Above a certain temperature the NOx production goes up rapidly.
A heat engine’s maximum theoretical efficiency is defined by the difference between the temperature of combustion and the temperature of the exhaust in Kelvin. This means that for the best efficiency and the best power output you want the temperature in the combustion chamber to be as high as possible (without melting things, of course.)
However, doing so makes a lot of NOx.
One of the ways this is managed is to use EGR — exhaust gas “recirculation.” Exhaust gasses are routed back into the incoming air stream, which dilutes it and thus reduces the maximum temperature. This attenuates NOx but at the time hurts both fuel economy and power.
“Clean diesels” also, in modern versions anyway, use what is called “DEF”, which is urea in liquid form. They inject this into the exhaust stream and, in the presence of a catalyst and heat (from the exhaust) the NOx is reduced chemically to harmless nitrogen (N2), water (H2O) and a small amount of CO2 (the carbon coming from any unburned hydrocarbon in the exhaust stream, of which there is little) using some of the heat in the process.
However, that catalytic reduction reaction is only so efficient. It does work, but it’s not possible to eliminate all of the NOx this way, so the amount coming in has to be within a certain boundary or a fair bit of it will not be reduced before the gas passes through the secondary catalyst. That appears to be what’s going on here.
Now for the speculation part: EGR in a diesel has some bad side effects and owners of ALH-engine vehicles (of which I have been one) know about it well. Specifically, the particulates in the raw exhaust stream (EGR is taken from before the catalytic converter and DPF traps) mix with the small amount of oil vapor that is inherently in the intake stream in a turbocharged engine (because the bearings are not perfectly sealed and are oil-lubricated) to produce a paste-like sludge. This deposits in the intake as that is quite a lot cooler than the exhaust stream that is being introduced and over time plugs it up.
That clogging is a maintenance pain in the ass; on the ALH engine vehicles you wind up with having to pull the intake off every 40-50k miles and clean it or it will starve the engine of air and thus both power and fuel economy. The ALH is a relatively simple design in this regard; the newer engines are not.
It is reported that there are “no” intake-clogging problems with these newer designs. What I’d like to know is if the reason there is no clogging is that EGR is basically inoperative most of the time, being engaged only when the ECU detects an emissions test cycle!
If so then the “fix” will have a modest but real impact on both power and fuel economy, but it may have a relatively-severe impact on maintenance schedules and cost. On the ALH engines removing the intake to clean it is a relatively straight-forward if messy operation (~4 hours of work or thereabouts for the guy in his garage) but I suspect that it is materially more-complex for these newer engines as integration of components has become far more commonplace.
We’ll see how this shakes out as time goes on… but I bet this code was not put in these ECUs simply to get a couple of percent higher fuel economy and power output numbers — there were other reasons for it as well, and reducing what may have been unreasonable maintenance requirements may have been a part of it.
PS: Who’s going to get indicted over this? Anyone? Or is this is yet another example of “do it as a corporation and nobody committed any crimes”?
VW CEO has resigned.
The first car I owned was exactly this one–same color scheme and pull-back canvas sunroof (1963):
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Karl is right and the issues with sludge are not only showing up on diesels, it is also an issue that will grow with more and more engines becoming Direct Injected (and often turbo charged) to meet fuel efficiency mandates. EGR’s sure gum up the intake side of your engine.
You basically have to walnut blast the intake to remove the crap that these emission devices leave in your engine. This is then compounded more by the bullshit different octane and fuel mixture requirements.
Actually, mine had the rear corner windows, so that other pic wasn’t a ’63.
Here is my prediction. They will mandate that all VWs affected must come in to have their hard drive reflagged with proper software, at no cost to the owner. Proof of compliance will be required to renew your registration, otherwise no one would do it. This new programming will both lower fuel efficiency and drastically reduce performance, and then the free market will show up again: people will start selling cheap programmers to replace the ‘new and improved’ software mandated by government to take the car back to its original performance if not better.
While it might sound illegal, the programmers will be sold with the warning that they are not street legal, which people will ignore. Just like they do now with diesel trucks. They all come with an exhaust gas recirculator, which engine manufacturers admit will both decrease performance and mileage while also lowering the overall engine life. This is the first thing most truck owners get rid of and this will be no different. I don’t own a Volkswagen and they don’t really make anything I like, but frankly I don’t care about them violating some bullshit like this. The hypocracy of the us govt, which is the biggest carbon dumper in the world, going after them is amusing.
NOx is produced by lightning; God’s fertilizer and the world needs it. The real problem is to many humans pile on in Urban Jungles. The FSA ones that just consume and pollute should be moved out to open land onto new western reservations.
“The hypocrisy of the us govt, which is the biggest carbon dumper in the world, going after them is amusing.” ———– Gator
I’ll bet one B-52 produced more pollution in its lifetime than all VW’s ever driven in ‘Murika.
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I dont see a bia deal here you can buy aftermarket chips to change the parameters (timing etc.) The dealer flashes the factory one and then you re-chip it.
The intake sludge is from the crap in the air (egr valves been around for a while 78 or so) carbureted or throttle body injection cars intake manifolds stay clean because of the fuel.
I still use carb cleaner in fuel injected engines to keep intake clean. Just dont spray in throttle body but in duct behind it.
Stuck: those Bongo 52s were powered(underpowered) by the Pratt J57 WB. Water injection. They were the loudest single source of noise until the Saturn 5 came along.
Vw is being shaken down for sure. Europe is being taken down, right before our eyes. Great stat, up top, jim. Stuck, the B-52’s have some water thing that boosts power for takeoff, not as firty as it seems.
Kill Bill says: I still use carb cleaner in fuel injected engines to keep intake clean. Just dont spray in throttle body but in duct behind it.
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Try this stuff if you get the infamous “check engine” light. 9 times out of 10 that light comes on due to dirty fuel injectors. This stuff cleans them out and that light will go out after about 50 miles of driving. Worked for me many times. 1/2 can into crankcase, other half into fuel tank. About $7 a bottle. It’s 100% pure petroleum.
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The thing with the EGR and the diesel particulate filter(DPF) is that they can be removed, but it is illegal. If you don’t live in a state that requires vehicle inspections, like most of the south(boo-ya) then no one will ever notice. If you have done a lot of speed mods to your truck, you will get more smoke when you accelerate, but not that much unless you have a ‘smoke time’ on your truck and do it on purpose. Some of those trucks with a DPF automatically dump raw fuel into the last two cylinders to burn out the stuff in the filter. It wasted fuel and robs you of power , just like the EGR. Both of those things also drastically reduce engine life. Removing them will feel like a new truck. But, again , it’s illegal to drive them on the road after doing that.
As Eric said in the article, diesel vehicles already have something like 80-90% less pollution emitted than the 80s, all of these measures that cost you money up front when you but the vehicle, cause you to burn more fuel, and reduce the overall engine life of your car are removing 75-90% of yor emissions, but what you aren’t told is that it’s removing 75-90 % of that remaining 10% , so it’s really only 2-3 % of total emissions which is absurd. The Eco fascists uncountable know all of this, and this has more to do with the freedom of car ownership as it is one of the few things that stands between us all being corralled into shoeboxes in big cities.
VW scandal caused nearly 1m tonnes of extra pollution, analysis shows
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/22/vw-scandal-caused-nearly-1m-tonnes-of-extra-pollution-analysis-shows
Rise up , Lipoh said you was a stupid sheepe but I think you have potential. I wouldn’t hire you either but that’s besides the point.
I always wondered why VW has diesel cars and none of the American cars did(for years anyhow)
I figure a Prius with a small diesel and no battery should get really good mileage. (they are very roomy inside)
My family has been in the car business for years and avoid German cars like the plague. They have a lot of problems and parts are pricey for them. They are so bad the dealers offload them to other small dealers. People at the dealership moan when they are traded in,Because they are money pits.
A Hyundai is a better car than a VW.
GM with its Gov. Bailout isn’t on my list of a company to buy a car from.
Personally i want an older 4×4 Suv(pre 2000 ish) because all the newer ones look like station wagons for soccer moms.They just don’t have that look that i like.
My opinions.
Yahsure says that a Hyundai is a better car than a VW. Maybe it is, I don’t know. What I do know is that my VWGTI is a lot better looking. At 70k miles, it runs tip top. I plan to drive it until it can’t anymore.
The US government is a satanic beast, bribing here, threatening there. If that doesn’t work then we bomb the stuffing out of ’em. Fuck the gubmint. Die already extortionists, bullies, war pigs, and traitors. You deserve an iron boot in the balls.
Here’s my question….Who the fuck is Eric Peters and why is he shilling for VW?
The point of this debacle isn’t the amount of emissions being hidden, it’s the fact VW went waaay beyond good sense in implementing this “trick” into the manufacture of perhaps millions of vehicles. If they cheated on this parameter, who’s to say they didn’t cheap in a 1,000 other ways?
And Stucky I don’t like the EPA any better than you do but for different reasons, namely they’re pretty much captured by big business and government. Hell, look at Hanford, what a mess that’ll never be cleaned up.
Meantime, I’m quite happy with my “new” 2012 Prius Plug-in with the HOV stickers that allow me to tool down the carpool lane solo!
Peters is pretty sharp on technical stuff, and as anti-NannyGov as any of us.
I don’t see why any fine levied on VW should be more than that levied on GM for all the dead people from the ignition-lock problems.
Rewarding Failure – Volkswagen CEO to Receive $32 Million Pension
Michael Krieger | Posted Wednesday Sep 23, 2015 at 3:39 pm
Last week, I tweeted the following with regard to my prediction about what would happen to the Volkswagen CEO after pretty much destroying the company’s reputation due to the emissions cheating scandal:
Michael Krieger retweeted Jennifer Scholtes
CEO will be fired and receive a $150 million exit package with a new free car every year for life.
It didn’t take long for crony capitalism to kick in. You know, where the most destructive and inept members of society are consistently rewarded for failure. Bloomberg reports the following:
Martin Winterkorn, engulfed by a diesel-emissions scandal at Volkswagen AG, amassed a $32 million pension before stepping down Wednesday, and may reap millions more in severance depending on how the supervisory board classifies his exit.
After Winterkorn disclosed Wednesday that he had asked the board to terminate his role, company spokesman Claus-Peter Tiemann declined to comment on how much money the departing CEO stands to get. Volkswagen’s most recent annual report outlines how Winterkorn, its leader since 2007, could theoretically collect two significant payouts.
Winterkorn’s pension had a value of 28.6 million euros ($32 million) at the end of last year, according to the report, which doesn’t describe any conditions that would lead the company to withhold it. And under certain circumstances, he also can collect severance equal to two years of “remuneration.” He was Germany’s second-highest paid CEO last year, receiving a total of 16.6 million euros in compensation from the company and majority shareholder Porsche SE.
While the severance package kicks in if the supervisory board terminates his contract early, there’s a caveat. If the board ends his employment for a reason for which he is responsible, then severance is forfeited, according to company filings.
Of course, we all know this isn’t going to happen. How do we know? Well this is how…
The supervisory board’s executive committee said in a statement Wednesday that Winterkorn “had no knowledge of the manipulation of emissions data,” and that it respected his offer to resign and request to be terminated. It also thanked him for his “towering contributions” to the company.
The annual report also mentions another piece of his pension: He can use a company car in the years that benefit is being paid out.
This is merely the latest example of the “heads I win, tails you lose” environment that protects corporate CEOs. In case you missed the following post published just last week:
United Airlines CEO Walks Away with $21 Million Exit Package After Resigning Due to Corruption Probe
Well of course you’re going to have income inequality when CEOs literally can’t lose, no matter how much they fail.
My friend the auto wholesaler refuses to buy VWs, owing to very bad quality experiences with them.
I agree – fuck the EPA.
But those VW pricks intentionally subverted the law. Not good. Not good at all.
The fine will be huge. But nowhere near the $18 billion being bandied about, unless someone in power grows a huge set of brass ones. and that is not likely to happen.
But someone(s) should go to jail. Maybe lots of someones. I will not hold my breath.
Starfcker, The B-52 fleet was max 1955 and had early dirty engines. I think everything else got new and better engines but because they had 8 engines each, it would have cost to much. They injected water when making fully loaded take offs but not to reduce smoke. That water was removed on cold nights.