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VW has just revealed the existence of 2nd software in 2016 vehicles pulled from US certification, that could potentially also be classified as a defeat device. If it is, it will call into question some statements made by the company or executives recently.
The question is, why didn't the German government catch this before? Don't they audit as is the case in the US? I mean, the same vehicles are polluting Europe as well.
Once this scandal is over, all VW car owners will expect their cars to loose most of their value (well maintained or not). Way to go VW.. bunch of cheating morons.
The question is, why didn't the German government catch this before? Don't they audit as is the case in the US? I mean, the same vehicles are polluting Europe as well.
Once this scandal is over, all VW car owners will expect their cars to loose most of their value (well maintained or not). Way to go VW.. bunch of cheating morons.
Because the US places more emphasis on Nox detection, and the EU on Co2.
That's one of the fallouts from George W Bush's refusal to sign the Kyoto protocols in 2001. Never thought I'd be singing his praises. Careful what you wish for etc.
That Mazda still hasn't made it to the US. Only all the Germans plus one Chevy, one Jeep, and and one Dodge truck offer diesel in the US, and VW dominates, at least in 2012.
I see. Should we eliminate all diesel cars?
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Originally Posted by CBMD
We're a two VW house. I drive an old Passat nearing it's end, and she drives a 2 year old Touareg, both gas, but still, it's embarrassing out there. In divorce law, when cheating spouses are in play, some US states have a legal concept known as "alienation of affection". I might go look for a lawyer.
Well, you have a spouse already other than VW, so you don't want to admit bigamy
Well, you have a spouse already other than VW, so you don't want to admit bigamy
Not sure why you ask that, but it may not be necessary. If EU diesel subsidies are withdrawn as a result of this, then they may just die a natural market death.
The German automaker, facing repercussions from its diesel emissions controversy, is now touting the electric VW Phaeton, a challenger to the Tesla Model S
Related.
TESLAS BECOME SELF-AWARE - FT's Tim Bradshaw: "Tens of thousands of Tesla owners will get their first taste of autonomous driving technology this week when the electric carmaker pushes out its 'Autopilot' software update. Up to 60,000 Tesla Model S vehicles already have the hardware required to run the software, which will allow the car to automatically steer within highway lane markers, change lanes and parallel park.
"A year ago, Tesla began building a dozen sensors, radar, forward-facing image-recognition cameras and advanced GPS navigation into its Model S. For customers with those vehicles, enabling Autopilot costs an extra $2,500, after installing a software update available in the US from Thursday. Regulatory approval is still pending in Europe and Asia. Elon Musk, Tesla co-founder and chief executive, told reporters at an event in Palo Alto on Wednesday that his ultimate objective was to create a car that behaved like a 'really good chauffeur'. 'It'll actually do better than a person,' he said. "I think this is going to be quite a profound experience for people when they do it . . . It's going to change people's perception of the future quite radically." http://on.ft.com/1LbzT0g
VW ordered to recall 2.4 million cars Volkswagen is ordered to recall 2.4 million cars in Germany while Italian police raid VW offices in Verona and Bologna.
After regulators threw out the carmaker’s proposal for voluntary repairs, the company will embark on one of the biggest recalls in European automotive history.
Older vehicles will be costlier to fix than newer ones. Some will need just software, others hard and soft. Estimates of the costs are all over the map, but multi billions seems likely. US dealers charge $60 an hour for labor. Some vehicles are going to need ten hours. If 4M vehicles need 7.5 hours each that's $1.8B.
VW ordered to recall 2.4 million cars Volkswagen is ordered to recall 2.4 million cars in Germany while Italian police raid VW offices in Verona and Bologna.
After regulators threw out the carmaker’s proposal for voluntary repairs, the company will embark on one of the biggest recalls in European automotive history.
Older vehicles will be costlier to fix than newer ones. Some will need just software, others hard and soft. Estimates of the costs are all over the map, but multi billions seems likely. US dealers charge $60 an hour for labor. Some vehicles are going to need ten hours. If 4M vehicles need 7.5 hours each that's $1.8B.
Only real fix is to swap the engines out for gas. Anything else screws the customer. And the liklihood is the customer will not implement the fix or will unfix it down the road.
There’s a policy failure with on-road diesel legislation,” said Jens Borken-Kleefeld, a senior researcher at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, which does technical analysis of air-quality issues for the European Union. “This to a large extent means you have NOx noncompliance issues across Europe.”
The Volkswagen scandal is putting new pressure on European policy makers to roll out tougher vehicle-testing standards that measure emissions based on how cars are actually driven, not how they perform in a lab. It is also reinforcing plans by some European cities to restrict diesel vehicles from their streets, a blow to the European auto industry’s huge investments in diesel technology.
“This scandal encourages us to go faster and stronger in the fight against these vehicles,” said Raphaël Chambon, deputy chief of staff to Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who is pushing to eliminate all but the cleanest diesel vehicles from the French capital by 2020.
Nitrogen oxides are Western Europe’s biggest air quality problem, according to pollution data. Cars and trucks—mainly those with diesel engines—are the bloc’s primary source of the pollutants, followed by power plants, the European Environment Agency says.
In the U.S., where far fewer diesel cars are on the road, NO2 levels in the biggest cities tend to be half levels in European cities.
U.S. testing procedures of NOx emissions from cars are also much stricter than EU tests, because they more accurately model aggressive acceleration and other aspects of real-world driving, according to the International Council on Clean Transportation, a non-profit group that helped uncover the Volkswagen scandal.
Really good if longish piece explaining Europe's history with diesel, and more. Well worth the full read.
EUROPE’S LOVE AFFAIR WITH DIESEL PUT ASUNDER
Brad Plumer, writing for VOX: “Last month's news that Volkswagen had been illegally rigging its diesel-powered cars to cheat on pollution tests has sparked plenty of outrage. Hearings, lawsuits, fines, general opprobrium. And rightly so; the company's deception was appalling.”
Europe has gone whole hog for diesel engines over the last 25 years, leaving it hugely vulnerable to the VW scandal. With numerous government encouragements and tax breaks, diesel ownership rose from 15 percent to 60 percent of all new registrations since 1990 and one-third of the entire fleet. The logic was that diesel engines were more efficient and saved gasoline while being less polluting. Now it has emerged that they are much more polluting. Over the same period, Japan’s diesel fleet declined from 10 percent to almost zero and diesels in the United States never rose above 1 percent. The discovery that diesels are more polluting will now cause huge disruptions in the European market and may threaten the future of Volkswagen, the second largest car company in the world.
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Last month's news that Volkswagen had been illegally rigging its diesel-powered cars to cheat on pollution tests has sparked plenty of outrage. Hearings, lawsuits, fines, general opprobrium. And rightly so; the company's deception was appalling.
But there's a much broader, far more consequential problem here that a lot of coverage has danced around or hinted at only indirectly. So let's say it: Europe's longtime promotion of diesel vehicles as a "green" transportation option has been a complete and total disaster — for reasons that go well beyond the Volkswagen scandal.
Ever since the 1990s, European governments have been encouraging drivers to buy diesel cars as an alternative to traditional gasoline-powered vehicles. The rationale was simple: Diesel engines use fuel more efficiently, so the switch was supposed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and help stave off global warming. Thanks to tax breaks and other incentives, diesel cars now make up one-third of Europe's fleet, whereas they're a sideshow in the US and Japan:
Europe's diesel push might have seemed sensible once upon a time. But 20 years later, with the benefit of hindsight, it looks like a huge mistake, an impotent climate policy that had all sorts of unintended consequences.
The biggest drawback of diesel cars is that they emit higher levels of other harmful air pollutants like particulates and nitrogen oxides. And those ended up being far harder to clean up than experts initially predicted. We now know that Europe's regulators have failed spectacularly to control diesel pollution, relying on weak rules and flimsy testing procedures. Lots and lots of automakers — not just Volkswagen — have been manufacturing diesel cars that emit far more gunk than they're supposed to. As a result, cities like London and Paris are clogged with dangerously high levels of air pollution, causing thousands of premature deaths each year.
And that's not the worst part. It's now looking like Europe's diesel push didn't even do anything to help global warming, as one 2013 study by Michel Cames and Eckard Helmers found. The CO2 benefits from switching to diesel cars were overrated and offset by the extra soot their engines produced. On top of that, Europe's entrenched diesel industry has impeded developed hybrid and electric car technologies that might have provided much deeper emissions cuts.
The whole episode is a sobering case study in how well-intentioned green industrial policy can go horribly wrong. So let's roll the tape and see what lessons we can learn from Europe's decades-long diesel fiasco.
Your post is a huge load of rubbish. US built cars are immensely popular in Europe, both old classic cars and newer. Look at the classic car scene in Scandinavia. US cars have masses and masses of followers. In many countries the largest classic car following is US cars - both new and old. Claiming Europeans don`t like US car styling is simply not true.
Most of the enthusiasts that like American cars in Europe find Euro models bland, boring and totally uninteresting. And they are not few - they are thousands. Drive an old Buick or a Ferrari - guess which car will draw the crowds !!!
BUT, most European countries tax cars by cubic inch displacement and most US cars have engines with higher CID. As an example a regular moderately priced Chevy will receive a huge tax premium when registered in many European countries.
Most European car builders base their models on low CID, high revving and turbo chargers.
This protects European car industry, and of course European car industry rides their high horse when it comes to pollution. And with the up and coming shut down of diesel traffic in many European cities - look where that took them!
In Europe if you ever see a car stranded with an open hood, you can bet it is a VAG product - either VW or an Audi. Their electronics and use of plastics is notorious. They even use plastic for the freakin`flywheel. And rust? I don`t even want to go there.
The make of car with the highest average age in Norway is Chevrolet at 26.9 years. Mercedes is number two at 12.9 years. Anything VW/Audi has been transformed to nails long time ago...and low quality nails too.
Of course it is not.
Yes, vintage American cars are quite popular, especially in the Nordic countries, but modern ones are not. Just take a look at the sales statistics:
UK - Jeep sold 3,909 cars. That is a 0.2% market share. Porsche actually sold 134% more cars than Jeep. Germany France
Americans do not use CID as a measurement for displacement anymore. I guess you are an old Amcar enthusiast. I think most European countries tax by emission and not displacement. Ford and GM have been very successful in Europe, but only by selling cars specifically developed for the region.
I thought modern Audis had the standard best rust-proofing in the industry?
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