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Originally Posted by renaissanceman
I'm thinking it may affect them being able to sell in the US market after the gov't shakedown...which may have the opposite effect and make the used market tighter. Time shall tell. I'm just hoping that this does not start a cascade of diesel hate/regulations.
They are talking fines of $18 billion...while GM gets a $900 million slap on the wrist for covering up faulty ignition switches that actually caused the deaths of ~100 people. Favoritism maybe?
Knee jerk reactions from regulators could be bad news. Hopefully I'm totally wrong!
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Comparing the VW premeditated fraud with the GM negligence and corporate coverup is a non-starter. Not suggesting the VW actions are better or worse, just a completely different situation.
I personally think that the Encyclopedia of Auto Industry Ethics is a very thin comic book. GM execs tried to cover up a defect, because no one pays corporate bonuses to whistleblowers who impact share prices. Quite to the contrary, honesty tends to be the quickest form of career suicide. And of course, the capitalist apologists and dividend whores among us would have it no other way.
OTOH, VW intentionally programmed their vehicles' computers to only produce the advertised emissions if the vehicle was being driven on a testing cycle. Once the car was on the road in normal conditions, the "real" program kicked in.
This was premeditated fraud... though one could argue not that much worse than the fraudulent fuel economy figures most automakers have been marketing their cars on, for the last 10? 20? years.
VW is supposed to come up with some kind of recall within a year. Well they already had a year to come up with something, and haven't. I fear that the fix isn't going to be pretty. I would wager VW owners are going to find their famously peppy TDi models will be lumps, once the computers are reprogrammed. The only way I can see to cut emissions is to cut fuel, which means less power.
People have obviously forgotten this has happened before, with highway tractors. IIRC all the major manufacturers paid huge fines something like 8 years ago, for falsifying emissions figures on a massive, industry-wide scale.
Back to VW: According to the report I heard tonight, this investigation began with academics in Europe, who became suspicious of the claims of manufacturers of how clean their diesels had become over the last decade... yet urban pollution levels are worse than ever.
They were the first to uncover the lie... which they passed on to the US government.
What I am wondering, is where this ends. Was VW was the only one found to be fudging the figures? Diesel sales are massive in Europe. I find it hard to believe only VAG was the only bad actor.
Who next? FIAT-Chrysler? Ford? I wonder.