Guest Post by Eric Peters
You’ve heard the saying that history repeats . . . as farce? Well, here we are. Not quite ten years after the government paid people to throw away perfectly good used cars to “stimulate” demand for new ones – the despicable Cash for Clunkers program – the government is doing the same thing again.
Only this time, the cars are not “clunkers” and the government is forcing VW to pay people to throw them away.
Almost 600,000 of them.
These cars are not high-miles and worn out, on their last legs. Many are only a year or two old. Nothing is wrong with any of them – other than their having been deemed “out of compliance” with Byzantine EPA emissions tests.
But only sometimes – and only slightly.
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The cars were programmed to pass the EPA certification tests – required before they could legally be sold. They passed the tests, which incidentally is the same criteria Uncle insist on when it comes to the “education” of “the children” in government schools. Pass the tests (SOLs) and you pass on to the next grade. Kids are “taught” to pass the tests.
Uncle smiles.
But in VW’s case, it was later discovered that the programming was set up to run the engine differently – that is, better from the standpoint of the people buying and driving the cars – when out on the road and not connected to the EPA’s emissions test dynamometers. Under certain operating conditions – wide open throttle, for one – the calibrations were set to produce maximum performance.
Or, under other conditions, maximum miles-per-gallon.
Diesel-powered VWs like the Jetta and Passat TDI routinely delivered better-than-advertised (by EPA) mileage, out in real-world driving. I can vouch for this personally, having test driven every TDI-powered VW sold over the past 10 years. They all used less fuel – delivered higher mileage – than EPA said they would. Interesting. Less fuel used equals less exhaust gas produced equals lower emissions overall.
VW never gets credit for that.
Crickets. Including from the mother-loving “environmental community.”
Which makes my teeth hurt because if you do the arithmetic, the more-efficient-than-advertised VW diesels reduced the aggregate of harmful emissions yugely vs. the fractional per car increase in tailpipe emissions generated by the “cheating” software.
Whole number differences, mind.
Now add to the tabulations the 562,000 high-efficiency cars slated for destruction. They will be replaced by gas-burning cars that use 20-30 percent more fuel to travel the same distance.
More whole number increases in the “harmful” exhaust byproducts EPA apparatchiks insist they are protecting us from.
It’s shameful.
But – once again – “demand” will be “stimulated” by this gratuitous destruction of value. The 562,000 owners of the targeted-for-termination TDI VWs will need a new car to replace the one bought back and thrown away.
Some may buy/lease another VW, which will give the appearance of increasing VW’s sales; some – soured on VW – will buy a new car from someone else. It will “stimulate” new car sales generally, a kind of four-wheeled take on the Potempkin Village concept. Create a facade, make things look good.
Just don’t look behind the facade.
Because here’s the thing: You can’t just write off the value of 562,000 cars and call it even. That value becomes a net loss – in this case, a sinkhole that may eventually swallow VW whole.
Here are some numbers for you:
The original Cash for Clunkers program destroyed a mere $3 billion in value – the sum spent to crush all those perfectly good used cars so as to get people to buy a new car. VW – which hasn’t got the power to tax people or to print money – is looking at “investing” $10 billion to buy back and destroy those 562,000 cars Uncle is feigning upset over.
And yes, feigning.
People think government bureaucrats are stupid – and there is some truth to this. They are morally obtuse, certainly.
But they are also sharky and vengeful when it comes to protecting their prerogatives (as they see them) and they know perfectly well what is at stake here. They are aware that if the people ever figured out the truth – that we are at angels dancing on the head of a pin time, as far as meaningfully harmful vehicle exhaust emissions are concerned – they would drag them from their cubicles and do not-pleasant things to them.
So, the feigned outrage.
It is not about public health and harmful emissions. It is about the potential harm to the EPA and other such if the people ever figure out that the whole thing is a gigantic make-work project, paid for by them. So that EPA appartchiks can live in $600,000 McMansions just outside the Beltway and very probably drive cars that belch out far more in the way of toxic gasses than any TDI VW ever did.
VW’s mistake was not “cheating” the tests. It was rolling over like a cur dog, presenting its belly – and hoping its master wouldn’t kick it in the soft parts.
They just bought back my Daughter’s 2006 Q7 with a 4? liter turbo diesel. She got a deal when it was 3 years old. The car originally sold for $80k.
She made a lot of money on the car – max blue book + $10,000 + some other rebate.
It’s a shame – it’s a beautiful car.
My daughter asked if she could keep it… she was told the the state / feds may refuse to license the car.
This is the most vindictive action I’ve seen by the federal government.
When you enter a game you agree to play by the rules.
VW knew the rules, entered the game, and then decided they wouldn’t play by them.
Whether the rules are right or wrong, good, bad or ugly, they are the rules VW agreed to when they brought those vehicles into the U.S.
I have sympathy for the diesel owners, but not for VW.
I understand that position and have taken it, but it’s like a home builder who built a million dollar house 3″ over the side set-back in one little portion of a pie-shaped lot. (I know a guy who did that). Are you really going to make him tear down the house over a 3″ violation that nobody cares about? Penalize VW – fine, but figure out a way to deal with this that’s not in direct opposition to the purported goals of environmental legislation. Government needs to make exceptions and try to use common sense.
That sort of thing actually happens.
But that’s a matter of the rules more than a deliberate violation of them, and deliberate violations usually have more severe consequences than accidental ones.
I’ve never really supported those EPA regs beyond the obviously essential ones anyway, but don’t see anything other than (possibly) Trump that will ever be able to straighten them out and he is going to have a hard time if it if he can.
VW’s mistake was not being a U.S. Government owned Auto Maker. While the Feds are making VW jump through hoops and acting outraged over emission improprieties, GM knowingly let’s people die with faulty starters, replaces them with more faulty starters, causing more deaths and gets a slap on the wrist fine. Nobody accountable. Nobody fired. This is what happens when a government takes control of a private company (the very definition of fascism). No conflict of interest there, by golly! Oh by the way, did you know Mary Bara, the CEO of G. M. and who was at the helm during this fiasco, Is the first female to hold such a title in U.S. Auto history? We are told this quite often here in the Detroit area by the professional government sponsored readers on the local news. That’s what is REALLY important. Affirmative action at its finest. And deadliest!
fascism,Fascism,FASCISM
Broken window fallacy. If you break the window, then it stimulates the economy by needing to have a new window made, a tech to come out and install it etc.
I will never understand this compliance by gunpoint. This is coercion, plain and simple. Throw away a perfectly good car, or be forced to possibly not be able to drive it because the emissions drones won’t allow you a registration. Of course it ultimately ends in force, since if you drive without registration an armed enforcer will pull you over, fine you and if you don’t pay, you are detained and jailed.
We had cars in the 60’s 70’s and 80’s that were exponentially more polluting than these cars could ever be at their worst levels, and somehow we kept on breathing. Besides, how much “carbon and greenhouse gas” will be produced in the manufacture of cars to replace these that are junked for no good reason. How many man hours and resources will be used in the destruction of perfectly good vehicles. This is the same stupid that Tesla is built on. Electric is clean, great. However, you are just moving the carbon discharge from the tailpipe to the smokestack down the street. Complete nonsense all around.
These cars, and almost all of the used car inventory in the US, will eventually make it to south America, and other 3rd world countries that do not have auto manufacturing.
nothing ever gets wasted in capitalism, only the .gov has mastered waste for the sake of numerical compliance, in order to get the same budget as last year.
I recall this navy air base in Warminster, PA, back in the 80’s when I was a subcontractor,
they bought about 1000 IBM PC (remember the 3.5 floppy with a 10mb hard drive) and put them in storage, at the end of the year, to use up “the budget”
by the next year, these were deemed out dated tech and sold for scrap at auction.
Warminster PA, on a road called “street road”
next to Hatboro.
I am so glad I left that place, even back then the traffic was terrible, I can only imagine what it is like today.
I left in a 1969 Buick Grand sport (455, posi) I picked up for about 1k, I sold it to a friend who restored it, and I think it’s worth about 10k now.
a ’69 Buick GS could not be a 455 (if it were original)
GM had a 400 CI limit on A body cars that was not lifted until Model year 1970.
That goes for Chevelles, Lemans/Tempest/GTOs, Olds Cutlass/F-85s/442s as well, along with Buick Skylarks/GSs
All were “A” body cars
One part of the problem is that with gas less than $3 per gallon, no one much cares about miles per gallon anymore. People say: so what if TDI vehicles get 10 to 20 more miles per gallon, if they spew out a bit more pollution then the rules say, fuck em. But as Eric said, the VW’s pollute less than gasoline vehicles. The problem wasn’t the amount of pollution, it was the blasphemy of cheating EPA.
Next time gas gets over $5/gallon, we’ll be wishing we all drove TDIs. Oh wait, what am I thinking, electric cars will solve all our problems.
Question about the EPA-I believe Nixon created the EPa w/an executive order.If that’s the cse,could Trump dissolve it ?
“Government Agencies, once formed and staffed, can never be dissolved, ever.”
Are you daft, man? It’s the 3rd Law Of Thermodynamics for fuksakes!!!
I’m still driving my 1994 Buick Century Station Wagon “Clunker”. Cars today are filled with lots of worthless junk I don’t want but I’d have to pay for anyway. GPS, Bluetooth, Wifi, backup cameras, touchscreens to run the heat and AC, 37 Airbags, 22 electric beepers for anything you could imagine, etc. No thanks.
I also had a 2005 Chevy Astro. It was great. Until a guy ran a red light and totaled it. He didn’t see the light was red because he was playing with his GPS at the time. I wore my seat belt which was good because none of the airbags deployed. Airbags are useless.
My first car was a 11 year old 1964 Chevy Belair, 283 with a power glide. I ran the hell out of that car with the meager maintenance a high school and college student could afford, always reliable. The only thing electronic was the radio. The more electronics you put on a car, the more flaky and unreliable they get.
Yes, I’m a grumpy old man.
My first 1/2 car was s ’64 Ford Falcon. Bondo Grey. It was 8 years old. What’s a 1/2 car, you ask? Well, one day my Dad says he’s going for a walk. About an hour later he pulls up into the driveway with this Falcon. My Mom had just received her license a few weeks before me. He’s says; “I just bought this car. And you just paid half for it.” He said there was no way Mom and I were going to drive his Station Wagon. The car cost me around $250. I was making $1.50/hr. Manual brakes and steering. Manual choke. Red bucket seats. I shared it with Mom my junior year of High School.