Volkswagen To Pay $10.2 Billion In Emissions Lawsuit (bbc.co.uk) 124
Reader Khashishi writes: Slashdot has been following the story of Volkswagen manipulating diesel emissions tests for some time now. The control software contained algorithms which reduced emissions during testing but not during normal driving. Well, now Volkswagen has agreed to pay $10.2 billion (alternate source: BBC) to settle the case, according to Associated Press. This is higher than the $430 million damages estimated in this story. It appears that vehicle owners will have the choice of fixing their cars or selling them back. Most of the money will go towards fixing the cars, buying them back, and compensating owners.
What a gas (Score:4, Insightful)
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They cheated, yes, but look at all the big rigs and construction trucks. They are not subject to any regulations and continue to pollute our air to the nth degree.
WTF are you talking about, both are regulated in both the US and EU. Stop typing out of your ass.
Re:Like I care (Score:5, Insightful)
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Does a diesel which gets nearly 50 MPG cause more pollution than a soccer mom and her 3/4 ton grocery getter does?
Re:Like I care (Score:4, Funny)
Ahh, would modern vehicles weigh a mere three-quarters ton. Try closer to 3 tons. And that's before she gets into the car!
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Even a Smart car? I can't find any car currently on sale that light. The smallest cars from the first few manufacturers that popped into my head:
VW Up: 940kg
Renault Twingo: 1000kg
Toytoa Aygo: 890kg
Mitsubishi Mirage: 895kg
Opel Adam: 1086kg
Audi A1: 1105kg
Nissan Micra: 1044kg
Mazda 2: 1043kg
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Does a diesel which gets nearly 50 MPG cause more pollution than a soccer mom and her 3/4 ton grocery getter does?
Apparently it does if it's a Volkswagen.
Re:Like I care (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Like I care (Score:2)
Partuculates don't cause acid rain - it is just carbon soot, not very nice to the lungs, but not an acid. Sulfur dioxide exhaust causes acid rain and nowadays the ships are the hughest producers of such exhaust because ships don't run it through quicklime scrubbers.
Re: Like I care (Score:2)
I am a cyclist and don't even own a car, just corrected a wrong notion.
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I can care less some embearded hipster feels he was defrauded by VW.
So you're with us then! Glad to have you on board.
Need better corporate penalties (Score:5, Interesting)
Straight money costs to companies are wrong. They effect the economic viability of companies and put jobs, and economies at risk while costing consumers.
A better approach would be a forced share dilution of significant proportion, 10,25 or 50% or more. This would not impact the economic viability of the company and would affect the value held by those supposedly actually in control of the company, the shareholders and the executives with share values.
It would then be up to the government who then owned the new shares to decide to immediately sell and drop the share price or hold on for higher value later.
The government would get money. There would be a punishment on the company, but the basic operation of the company would be lower.
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The government would get money.
Because the government never does foolish things with the money they receive.
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What money? A shareholding isn't money. It's a great example of locking up cash, being able to control a company, and not being able to do anything further without selling.
That said I wonder what the German government (20% stakeholder) would say to the USA attempting to force dilution of an investment of a foreign company without actually injecting cash into the system.
The damage is already done (Score:2, Insightful)
Better to just dump that $10 billion dollars in to a non profit electric car research institute.
How much better batteries can you design on a $10 billion dollar budget?
The Tesla gigafactory cost $5 billion, for an idea of how much $10.5 billion dollars in research would buy you.
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Better to just dump that $10 billion dollars in to a non profit electric car research institute.
How much better batteries can you design on a $10 billion dollar budget?
The Tesla gigafactory cost $5 billion, for an idea of how much $10.5 billion dollars in research would buy you.
IIRC, when this deceit was first exposed, there was an article that said VW's "fine" would entail building electric-car charging stations throughout the U.S. Some government moron probably decided that made too much sense.
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Well not quite - that $5B gigafactory gives you an idea of how much battery factory you can get, not how much research...
Back-of-the-envelope says $10B should give you about a hundred-thousand man-years of research.
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Yeah design a vehicle where the brakes fail in a very detectable way and not bother warning you that your brakes will no longer function the way you're used to. Fuck them.
But they do, all VW's have a big white inflatable thing that warns you the brakes have failed.
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Needs -1 Asshole mod.
What will VW diesel owners actually get? (Score:1)
Given the different elements in this scandal, I am a bit skeptical that these VWs can be truly "fixed". Does VW really have some fix up their sleeve that will truly give the owners what they *thought* they purchased from an emissions and fuel economy standpoint? Never mind whatever effect on resale value.
I have owned a few VWs but never again a VW Group product for me. I couldn't trust them. If I owned one of these diesels I would be looking to get my money back completely.
Buy back (Score:4, Funny)
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Or they'll end up in Syria with large machine guns mounted on top.
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pics or it never happened
Does this mean I get a TDI for cheap? (Score:5, Funny)
Can't wait for these cars to be "recycled" through the Pre-Owned market with no warranty of any kind, but sold for a third of what they should be.
I love the TDI engine, who cares if it pollutes? I have no kids and I'm over 50 -- I ain't living forever.
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No, hysteria aside these are still some of the most efficient and reliable cars you can buy and the average used prices still reflect that.
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tekrat is right. The used market for these is about to take a beating.
Ether the owner takes the fix and the money, or the owner takes the money and gives back the car.
In the first case the car runs like shit and the owner sells it six months later, in the second the dealership applies the fix and wholesales it out.
The TDIs will go to south America and Africa, have the emissions fixes reversed and run for decades. Alternatively they will be fixed by industrious people locally.
Anybody got a link to o
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Re:Does this mean I get a TDI for cheap? (Score:4, Insightful)
You own (lack of) progeny aside, you don't care about the general survival of the human race or stewardship of this one and only home we call Earth?
Obviously not, so here's something your shallow, selfish interests can grock: the known emissions problems for these vehicles will probably make them un-registerable in the United States, unless you get the performance-crippling ECU "fix".
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I really don't care either...I'm here to have my fun and when I'm dust...who cares?
We're here only a very short time, and I don't intend to hamper my existence for some future inhabitant that won't even know my name....
Fortunately, I live in a state that does no emissions tests....heck I moved from one that doesn't do inspections at all!!
It's nice not to l
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I really don't care either...I'm here to have my fun and when I'm dust...who cares? We're here only a very short time, and I don't intend to hamper my existence for some future inhabitant that won't even know my name....
This, right here, is why the human race is doomed to die on this planet, or at the most, this solar system. We don't deserve to go any further.
"A society grows great when old men plant trees under whose shade they know they will never sit."
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Technically, by deciding to not have children, he is doing far more to prevent pollution and damage to the environment than those that have kids. His carbon footprint (pollution footprint) ends with him. People who have kids have their footprint continue into the future - possibly for centuries or millennia.
So, who is really protecting the environment? The one person who drives a car with slightly more emissions, or those who ensure future damage to the environment by their children?
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You own (lack of) progeny aside, you don't care about the general survival of the human race or stewardship of this one and only home we call Earth?
The citizens does not care care as shown by their electing politicians who implement rent seeking instead of solutions so why should he?
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I love the TDI engine, who cares if it pollutes?
Ah, but how much does it pollute? My understanding is that it's still way cleaner than older diesel engines.
The problem is not that the VW engines are filthy. The problem is that the the new standards are so difficult to meet. That's why it wasn't just VW that cheated.
So I'd say don't feel too guilty driving an unpatched TDI. It will be cleaner than a lot of things you could be driving, such as an older diesel or even an older gasoline car.
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Don't, it's still a VW.
Just get yourself a nice V8 convertible, supe it up like you're 16 again (only this time, not an idiot). The market is full of really nice, powerful cars for cheap right now. Remember being a kid and wishing you had the money to buy a hemi-cuda when they were cheap? That time is here again.
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I love the TDI engine, who cares if it pollutes? I have no kids and I'm over 50 -- I ain't living forever.
papa, why you so mean? ;_;
make the punishment fit the crime (Score:5, Insightful)
So a few months ago, because I could not find the information anywhere on the entire internet, I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation to estimate how much more polluted the air in the U.S. is as a result of the VW emissions cheat. The answer is that the air is about zero percent more polluted because of that cheat.
The reason for that is that baseline emissions of diesel exhaust pollutants in the U.S. is so enormous. Commercial diesel tractor trailers emit pollutants at a much higher rate than do VW cars because the engines are so much larger and consume fuel at higher rates. The trucks run many more miles per years than the cars. There are many more diesel trucks than diesel cars. (There a lot of trucks and VW diesel cars are not huge sellers in the U.S.) So the net percentage increase in pollution because of that cheat calculates out to about zero.
VW is worth a lot of money and has not much political clout in the U.S. so this turned into feeding frenzy for lawyers. Penalties of this size are entirely unjustified by the degree of harm.
There should be a price for polluting, based strictly on the types and volumes of pollutants, and it should be applied to all, regardless of the type of vehicle or its nation of origin, or its owner. The right solution here is to tax vehicle exhaust emissions at a single universal rate and let manufacturers and buyers decide what to make and what to buy.
What we have instead is sanctioned pillaging.
Deep Water Horizon BP Oil Spill (Score:4, Interesting)
BP payed more... but not much more for doing far more damage!
Wasn't their settlement about $20 billion?
Re:Deep Water Horizon BP Oil Spill (Score:5, Insightful)
VW is paying for deliberately contravening the law. They wanted to make non-compliant cars look like they were compliant. This goes beyond negligence, where you don't know or don't care that what you're doing could cause harm. It's malfeasance. They knew what they were doing was wrong, but did it anyway. It's the difference between carelessly putting a box of rat poison on the shelf above the stove, and it accidentally falling into the soup you're serving the restaurant customers. And deliberately putting melamine into pet food knowing full well that it'll cause harm.
This supersedes how much damage was actually caused by their cheat. VW isn't paying for the damage their cars did to the environment. They're paying for deliberately flaunting the EPA's rules. And I say this as someone who supports VW's push for more diesel cars - they should be made to bleed for what they did.
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VW is paying for deliberately contravening the law. They wanted to make non-compliant cars look like they were compliant.
What if I consider this a matter of civil disobedience? The law is wrong, and I will defy it. Sometimes bad laws are impossible to remove through the regular system because the system is corrupt, and civil disobedience is the only way to get started on a fix. I am not proposing that VW is using this angle, but am offering it as an analogy. Bad laws should be opposed, one way or another.
They knew what they were doing was wrong, but did it anyway.
No. They knew it was probably illegal. Right and wrong do NOT follow legal and illegal. That is completely backwards. Law s
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Bad laws should be opposed, one way or another.
Firstly you need to setup the premise that this law was actually bad.
They knew it was probably illegal. Right and wrong do NOT follow legal and illegal.
Just because they broke the law doesn't mean what they did wasn't also wrong. Again first you need to show that the law in this case was contradictory to the values of wanting to breath breathable air. Then we can discuss the difference between right and wrong.
They broke the law, intentionally.
They caused direct harm through emissions to people which is wrong, intentionally.
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What if I consider this a matter of civil disobedience?
Then you're an idiot.
VW commited fraud by selling cars that were not anything close to what was advertised.
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BP payed more... but not much more for doing far more damage!
Wasn't their settlement about $20 billion?
BP also came out and owned the problem. They may have paid $20bn to cover the lawsuit, but have paid an additional $14bn in direct cleanup costs so far with more continuing and have slowly started whittling down the $50bn put aside for payouts beyond the government fine. Also bear in mind that the Macondo blowout was a disaster.
VW on the other hand, they're getting a slap on the wrist for wilful misconduct.
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So a few months ago, because I could not find the information anywhere on the entire internet, I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation to estimate how much more polluted the air in the U.S. is as a result of the VW emissions cheat. The answer is that the air is about zero percent more polluted because of that cheat.
The reason for that is that baseline emissions of diesel exhaust pollutants in the U.S. is so enormous. Commercial diesel tractor trailers emit pollutants at a much higher rate than do VW cars because the engines are so much larger and consume fuel at higher rates. The trucks run many more miles per years than the cars. There are many more diesel trucks than diesel cars. (There a lot of trucks and VW diesel cars are not huge sellers in the U.S.) So the net percentage increase in pollution because of that cheat calculates out to about zero.
VW is worth a lot of money and has not much political clout in the U.S. so this turned into feeding frenzy for lawyers. Penalties of this size are entirely unjustified by the degree of harm.
There should be a price for polluting, based strictly on the types and volumes of pollutants, and it should be applied to all, regardless of the type of vehicle or its nation of origin, or its owner. The right solution here is to tax vehicle exhaust emissions at a single universal rate and let manufacturers and buyers decide what to make and what to buy.
What we have instead is sanctioned pillaging.
Hear! Hear!
I'm not letting go my diesel car.
I have a great range on a pretty good size car: less trips to refuel, which is nice when you drive a lot. I have plenty of torque to pass slow vehicles.
And any redneck pickup rollin' coal (rollin' coal https://youtu.be/JGYc0wCP7oQ [youtu.be] ) or any plain 16-wheeler outputs way more pollution per mile/gallon/vehicle/year than any "bad bad bad dirty VW Diesel".
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Cratering the resale value of a few million vehicles, along with the stock value of the company, doesn't constitute harm? A corporate citizen deliberately cheating on tests, then covering it up, does not constitute harm? I get it, it's hard to pin a monetary damage to corporate malfeasance, but that doesn't mean that there's no harm.
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Re:make the punishment fit the crime (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit.
The fine isn't just about pollution. VW committed fraud by advertising their cars with false information. Consumers made choices based on that information.
If someone fraudulently advertises a product that doesn't do what they say it will do and they get caught, having to make the product work as stated or refund customer's money is a fairly standard penalty.
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The crime wasn't polluting. The crime was cheating, then lying about it. On a large, utterly systemic scale.
The fact that the pollution is supposedly minor is mere luck.
It's about the baby seals (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd wager that these VW vehicles would still comply with the the emission limits of, say, five years ago. Yet, baby seals weren't jettisoned out of the earth towards the sun then.
Bad math (Score:2)
From TFA: "Most of the money would go to compensate 482,000 owners" and "$1,000 to $7,000 depending on their cars' age, with an average payment of $5,000"
Not sure about the rest of you but I get $21K per owner when I divide that out, not $5K.
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From TFA: "Most of the money would go to compensate 482,000 owners" and "$1,000 to $7,000 depending on their cars' age, with an average payment of $5,000"
Not sure about the rest of you but I get $21K per owner when I divide that out, not $5K.
did you rtfa?
they have to pay:
- fines
- buyback and/or repair the 482K vehicles
- compensation to 482K owners
wouldn't you imagine the fines are a big chunk of that 10B?
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That's because you weren't paying attention. Sure, 10.2*10^9/482*10^3 = ~21*10^3, but that isn't what even your clips say.
"most of the money" means *less* than 10.2 billion. How much less you can get by reversing the average. That is, 5*10^3*482*10^3 ... which comes out to about 2.4*10^9, or ~25% of the total.
How can "most of the money" be represented by this amount? First, your choice of quotes implies that the only form of owner compensation is $1,000 to $7,000. I haven't read the article so I have no ide
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violating slashdot's rule, I went and read the article. The winning explanation is.... selective quoting.
"Owners would have a choice between selling their vehicles back to VW at the value before the scandal broke on Sept. 18, 2015, or keeping the cars and letting the company repair them. Either way, they would also get $1,000 to $7,000 depending on their cars' age, with an average payment of $5,000, one of the people said."
So about 25% of the amount would go to the third option, "compensation", while unspec
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That's the payment for degraded performance. Add in the cost of the engine 'tune'. Some vehicles will need urea tanks. Last I heard, they hadn't figured out where they could fit them.
Owners alternatively can have the cars 'bought back'. The really ugly ones for VW are the most recent that get pushed back by customers. VW will have to sell them running in continuous test mode, they will run like ass and have further service issues as test mode was never meant to be 100% of the time. Smart money would be a
VW's deceit: why we're doomed (Score:1)
A prime example of why the Paris Accord limits will never be achieved.
VW, Mitsubishi and thousands of other companies will continue to search for ways to get around emission controls, and anything else that is not in the interest of their shareholders.
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Do you eat red meat, steak or otherwise use livestock derived products?
The EPA even says that livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.
Focussing on cars in the face of livestock pollution seems like a silly waste of resources. /btw, I heart meat
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I know that it's not just cars, or any single product, or process.
That's why I said "...emission controls, and anything else that is not in the interest of their shareholders."
Corporations and their shills will continue to lie, cheat and dissemble on a grand scale. VW are just one example.
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Just one word (Score:1)
Just one word..... "oooouch"
what's wrong with algorithm? (Score:2)
if they have an algorithm that reduces output during tests, and not driving, why not apply that algorithm as well during actual driving?
Consistent Scale of Enforcement Fines? (Score:2)
This is an entirely subjective statement - which is why I'm being cautious and inviting correction - but it strikes me that this is a pretty harsh fine and one specifically levied against a non-US company. Are there similar findings against US companies to compare with it?
For example: this is a case of a company mis-stating the emissions
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I bought a VW TDI because (Score:2)
It was, according to independent testing and according to VW's marketing: More powerful than gasoline cars, more fuel efficient, and less polluting. The fix, whatever it is, will probably reduce the power available, or reduce fuel economy, in order to bring it within limits. Probably reducing power. So I bought the based on false pretenses. Oh, and I paid more for it than I would have for a gasoline vehicle.
So, yeah, I was definitely defrauded. Of potentially several thousand dollars.
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It was, according to independent testing and according to VW's marketing: More powerful than gasoline cars, more fuel efficient, and less polluting.
That is all still true. Dieselgate is about NOx, one of the components of automobile exhaust gas which plays a minor role in air pollution. Nothing so far has indicated that the defeat device software causes more emissions of the major pollutants (particulates and unburnt hydrocarbons). There may be illegal software in the ECU, but the cars are still clean and fuel efficient.
The fix, whatever it is, will probably reduce the power available, or reduce fuel economy, in order to bring it within limits
The fixes that are being rolled out in Europe have been extensively reviewed by the federal motor vehicle agency in Germany before the
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I'm sure all those line employees who were there in the 1940s are very sorry about it.
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I wasn't aware that one needed to be a leftist environmental whacko for not wanting to allow huge industrial concerns to poison our air.
Thanks for educating me.