VW emissions scandal hits 11m vehicles
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
And as far as VW is concerned this is only the beginning: how many customers are going to sue VW for a sudden decrease in market value / resale value of their vehicle?
The damage to the VW brand is enormous, if not fatal. But the damage to 'Made in Germany' and the rest of the German brands is collosal as well. This will surely be reflected in the GDP of Germany for many years to come.
In that case we could have aftermarket parts and/or interoperability. These are bad things that could cut into corporate profits.
VW and BP spill are outliers.
Evidence?
If you think VW will be just fine now would be a good time to buy some stock.
This story isn't over yet, I'm pretty sure of that.
On the other hand, I can almost hear the other manufacturer's executives scrambling around asking, "Are we being this blatant?" and I'm quite a few miles from any segment of the automotive industry.
(Disclosure: I have a 2002 Corvette with the CAGS disabled.)
VW is in a world of trouble. This saddens me because our fleet has both a VW caravelle and a VW up, neither of which are affected but VW has been an excellent supplier for me to date and I'm seriously disappointed that they would stoop this low. Even if this order did not come from the top (which one would hope) it screams lack of oversight and lack of independent in-house verification.
There's no reason the same method couldn't be used to falsify CO2 emissions (and therefore VED band) too though!
How does this prevent VW from publishing inaccurate source code?
Let's say we manage to force them to not only disclose full source code but also how to make binary reproducible builds and we also (somehow) can verify the integrity of every single microcontroller in the car, how do we prevent underhanded programming tactics?
We're always going to need to trust auto makers so why put massive burdens on them that don't remove our need to trust them?
So researchers magically know in what bit of code the next scandal will be?
Next time it might be the simulation software that's not even in the car. Lets release that to.
Or should we ask them to only release the exact bit of code with the issue?
Besides which, do we even get the EFF is not crazy enough to ask for them to publish their source code and destroy their IP?
They just don't want the anti-circumvention measures in the the DCMA to apply. The right to access what's in our hardware.
Not the right to force people and companies to do things they don't want to. This is not government run voting hardware.
Emissions, performance and service related scandals will almost certainly not originate in the entertainment system or the navigation system.
Security issues might originate there if the other side is not properly designed.
So ECU, ABS, ODBII and such should be fair game and 'inspectable'.
GM recently admitted that a defective product of theirs was responsible for over 120 deaths:
General Motors agreed to pay $900 million as
part of a Justice Department investigation
into its failure to fix a deadly ignition
switch defect blamed for more than 120 deaths.[1]
It would be a tragedy if the cost to VW of their negligence is more than the cost to GM of theirs.
And in response to those who say that increased pollution could kill a lot more, I acknowledge the hypothetical. But in my mind, the death of 120 identified people with names, children, friends, aspirations, etc, is far worse than the increased NOx from VW's cars.
[1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/09/17/gm-justi...
GM is in no universe blameless, but considerations that hold it like murder are irrational.
VW actively and intentionally misled consumers and regulators to sell cars promising mileage and power levels they don't actually achieve without actually cheating the system. They sold hundreds of thousands of cars -- at the cost of significant air pollution (some 200,000 Americans, and millions worldwide, are estimated to die from air pollution yearly) -- based upon these essentially lies. They actively promoted their eco-friendliness, and their great fuel economy, neither of which are actually true in concert.
Now all VW diesel cars sold during a certain period will have their resale value greatly reduced. Non-diesel VW resale values will be tainted at least slightly by association. Even if VW recalls the cars and replaces them with a completely overhauled diesel drivetrain -- very unlikely -- there will still be a massive class action lawsuit, because the car will not be working as advertised in some way. This will keep potential buyers away from showrooms.
It's really not hyperbole.
That's true, but it's not because they aren't "long established". E.g. I personally owned the 1966 version of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagon_beetle so that's 50 years right there.
I'm sure it goes back quite a way further than that, but, after a quick scan of that Wiki, I couldn't find the original date that imports started.
[1] https://hyundaimpginfo.com/customerinfo/compensation-informa...
edits: grammar. apparently I can't write coherently today.
There is no reason for anyone to publish their trade-secrets. Compliance can be assured through better testing, which is how this came to light.
All the arguments for open source in this market are wonky. They sum up to things like "I want to tamper with my engine controls because I somehow know more than the team of degreed engineers who designed it and got it type-approved" and "I want a generic ECU for all engines because it will be great if everyone had to pay for logic, drivers and other hardware that only a small subset of engines require. Oh and because it would be easier for me to tamper with."
I'm glad this situation came out into the press because it will discourage other carmakers from cheating.
There are many reasons to want to inspect/build the code to the hardware that you already own.
Normally you'd assume that basic self-interest would stop a large company from lying too much, but that theory has gone right out the window after these revelations.
Slip it into their vehicle next time they're in for some other routine issue.
https://www.gov.uk/getting-an-mot/the-mot-test
I guess most of Europe has something similar.
So it seems to me that if VW has to detune their engine performance, they'll similarly have to compensate owners of the affected cars.
I don't think that would quite work because the new sales would also factor in distrust and changes in consumer perception and taste which further reduces the amount of sales VW might have. You'd essentially have to do this in a vacuum where the updated vehicles' sales were subtracted from the non-updated vehicles and the numbers crunched on the premise that nobody ever found out about this and it was just fixed and swept under the rug.
Either way, I like your idea and I hope these owners get adequately compensated for this.
But that would be appropriate, because these factors would negatively affect the potential resale value for the defrauded owner.
If the CO2 emissions had happened to be ever so slightly higher than 120g/km then I couldn't have bought it, and would have picked the V70 D4 instead.
Obviously, if VW had been fair, maybe they couldn't have squeezed 191hp and 5L/100km consumption out of it. Suppose it would have been 170hp and 5L/100km instead to reach the required emissions targets. Now instead of better perforomance than the competition (such as the Volvo) it would have be worse! It's entirely possible I wouldn't have picked it.
So as a customer I'm not really suffering from VW's wrongdoing here. At least not yet (until I get a message saying my not-yet-received car will be delayed 2 months and is already less powerful than when I ordered it). Volvo on the other hand may well have already lost a sale of a new car. Makes you wonder how many sales they lost, and makes you realize how important accurate tests are.
So this scandal is all your fault, then? :-)
"*MPG figures are obtained from laboratory testing and intended for comparisons between vehicles and may not reflect real driving results."
=/
[1] http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/volkswagen/golf-vii-2013...
Furthermore, the owner of the 2009 Jetta TDI will have less bargaining room than the owner of the 2014 Audi A3 taking into consideration the price, age, mileage and status of the vehicle. I wouldn't be surprised if VW argue the older vehicles (say 2009-2012) benefited from the software more than the 2013+ vehicles and thus are entitled to even LESS compensation.
"That's a bold strategy. Let's see how it plays out."
One option would be to make it an automatic fail of the emissions tests for any car where this has not been fixed. This obviously won't work universally but for locations where emissions testing is required periodically this could help move the process along.
11m cars times $1000 and you're at $11b!
Aside from the costs of a recall and class-action lawsuits, VW will also be looking down the barrel of some pretty ugly EPA fines. I've seen numbers as high as $32,000 per affected sold vehicle. Of course the actual fines will be a lot less, but still probably pretty substantial.
> how do they expect to get people to bring their cars in for the fix when the fix can be expected to make their cars get worse fuel economy and a decrease in power?
It will depend on the state. In California, owners won't have a choice; if there is an emissions-related recall you have to provide proof that you've had your vehicle repaired as part of the inspection / licensing process.
Which then means that vehicles from other states won't sell well to Californians, and other states may well have some kind of similar requirements (though I think California's is the most strict, as usual).
As long as the car is under warranty (the first 3 years, for VW in UK for example) the owner is required to service it following the manufacturers recommendation. This pretty much guarantees that at least for 3 years, new cars will be brought to service regularly.
If I was a manufacturer of modern cars, I'd include the requirement to always install the latest software at every service, in the terms of the warranty.
The new ones really drive with pep, like normal cars, so I think they thought they'd sell more with better performance. There is a not insignificant price premium for diesel vehicles.
Diesel owners are really really passionate about their cars (no time to redesign their web forums) and "Diesel Gate" is going to hit that loyalty hard.
Summary page with graphs:
Not a big deal, imho. There are far bigger threats to the environment than all cars combined - just look at all those freight ships burning bunker fuel, coal power plants emitting more radioactivity than a decades old nuclear plant...
edit: Reason for this is that burning sulphur in fuel produces sulphur dioxide, which when combined with rain or natural humidity, makes acid rain.
So, yeah. I don't think the cargo ships are villains or anything, but one of them is worth 50 million cars, for that specific type of emission. (cars would be higher, but they're regulated.). Generally it's turning around, different countries are requiring low sulphur fuel, in spite of the cost. The us was January, i think.
It's more like double the cost. Your point stands, though.
That may be true for local waters (iirc 12 nautical miles from the land). International waters, not so much.
How can you state that with certainty?
Cows eat grass, not fossil fuels. Measuring the impact of agriculture vs. transportation should take the source of the pollutants into account.
Excluding the farm equipment and fossil-fuel-based fertilizer, cow burps form a natural closed loop. Meaning, grow corn or grass and it takes in greenhouse gasses from the soil and the air. Feed it to a cow and it releases those same greenhouse gasses.
Cows and plants by themselves are not actually contributing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere in a manner that contributes to global warming. Meaning, if you're worried about cow burps or humans breathing... stop worrying about it. And if you're pointing out that animals emit greenhouse gasses... cool, but that is irrelevant to a rational discussion of emissions that lead to climate change.
For agriculture, the system becomes imbalanced when you add in the emissions of the industrial farm equipment and the shipping infrastructure to getting food from the farm to the the table. But that imbalance is what we're trying to address when we talk about transitioning to more fuel efficient vehicles or more sustainable farming practices (like not using fossil fuels in fertilizer).
So, mentioning agriculture as a polluter is typically a red herring. At first blush it seems reasonable because there are a lot of farm animals that emit greenhouse gasses. However, including agriculture in a discussion of emissions is usually disingenuous or misinformed.
> Excluding the farm equipment and fossil-fuel-based fertilizer, cow burps form a natural closed loop. Meaning, grow corn or grass and it takes in greenhouse gasses from the soil and the air. Feed it to a cow and it releases those same greenhouse gasses.
Plants take in CO2. Cows fart out methane. Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.
http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.htm...
> Pound for pound, the comparative impact of CH4 on climate change is 25 times greater than CO2 over a 100-year period.
> Methane breaks down in the atmosphere to form carbon dioxide, ozone, and water, all of which absorb heat.
Almost every current article about cow burps cites a 2006 U.N. study saying that livestock accounted for 18% of methane pollution. That study was later called into question as being slightly exaggerated because it included pollution from farming infrastructure itself, not just the animals.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/climatecha...
> The meat figure had been reached by adding all greenhouse-gas emissions associated with meat production, including fertiliser production, land clearance, methane emissions and vehicle use on farms, whereas the transport figure had only included the burning of fossil fuels.
Here's an example from the 70's
"Two may keep counsel when the third's away." --Shakespeare, Titus AndronicusThe DOJ said they'd start seeking it. (Yes, I know it's a German company...)
"It affects 2009-14 Jettas, Beetles, Audi A3s and Golfs and 2014-15 Passats."
Audi and VW share "platforms" which comprise of the core parts. Current-gen Passat, Golf, and A3, among a few others, all use the MQB platform.
Uses cheap low-octane gasoline and can get 45-50 mpg (like a Prius), and 700 miles on a tank of gas. Emissions are 188 grams/mile (vs. VW's 298 for a Passat TDI). Trickled down Acura active suspension, wider tires than a stock Accord.
Priced about the same as a Passat TDI, but with almost Tesla level engine tech and probably more reliable than either on average.
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2014/02/review-2014-honda-a...
All VW customers should demand full refunds. They were defrauded.
Saying that someone broke the law doesn't mean they did anything ethically wrong. I think it would be an uphill battle to demonstrate if/how VW harmed their customers.
"NOx" is the label for a group of chemicals that includes NO2 (the combustion prouduct) but not N2O (laughing gas).
It doesn't?
Because NOx decomposes (with sunlight) into O3, and O3 is a major urban pollutant, the harm is very real.
If news reports are to be believed, there were 30-40x violations of expected emissions.
The harm done to customers will be really obvious in those jurisdictions where customers have to get this fixed to maintain their registration, since power and fuel efficiency will be affected.
"NOx should not be confused with nitrous oxide (N2O), which is a greenhouse gas and has many uses as an oxidizer, an anesthetic, and a food additive." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOx