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Comment by wl | Hacker News Reader

There's a big difference between a few rednecks illegally modifying their personal vehicles and a company selling millions of vehicles that fail emissions standards and trying to cover it up.

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> selling millions of vehicles

VW sold approximately 475000 affected diesel vehicles in the US (compared to approx. 84.5 million car sales in the same time period).

This has always been my problem with the whole case. Yes they violated the law and yes they probably should be some punishment but the real impact was almost nothing, the vehicles would have met the restrictions of only a few years prior, and the limits are almost entirely arbitrary and politically motivated.

I agree. If we weren't on a forum filled with mostly people from CA who take for granted things like byzantine HOA rules and intrusive bylaws we'd be questioning why emissions requirements made "screw it, we're cheating on this one" a defensible decision for anyone at VW. You shouldn't have to break the law to be competitive.

How many other car manufacturers broke the law in this way? We're none of the ones that didn't competitive? What a patently ridiculous argument.

Last time I checked all tested diesel cars displayed anomalies between their supposed emissions and their actual emissions. So at this point: Likely all car makers.

And while this hasn't been public knowledge, it is not that surprising, because it has been public knowledge how much the mileage tests are gamed, so it's not surprising that all other tests are gamed as well (and, specifically, using defeat devices is also illegal).

The technology exists for diesel engines to meet emissions regulations. However, German car-makers secretly formed an agreement not to use certain emissions reduction technologies (such as large, refillable AdBlue tanks) in order to save money:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/24/16021292/german-car-compa...

There were a few who actually didn't cheat, or pulled out of the market. Opel is a prominent one as I remember.

"Screw it, we know how to meet the law, but we want to save money" is what VW did. Not only did it result in people dying from air pollution, it also left their competition wondering how VW did it so inexpensively.

the competition didn't get caught.

It likely resulted in multiple deaths from air pollution.

Now, yes worldwide 100,000's of people die every year from air pollution but simply giving up is a poor solution. Further, you can't make getting caught have similar penalties vs. cheating or you promote cheating as having zero downsides.

They knew the law, knew their obligations under the law and broke it with clear intent. How is prosecution arbitrary or politically motivated?

Not really, both are stupid and should be punished.

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