Posted on 09/28/2015 8:55:52 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Most cars you pull off a small cover on the left side under the dashboard, and you plug in a special connector to interface with the car’s computer. It’s the same place you plug in a device if you have an insurance policy that bills you based on your driving style.
Then VW goes bankrupt and nobody gets anything.
True. But vehicle manufacturers selling cars in Ohio are still required to meet national standards set by the EPA. So the cars in Ohio are equally out of spec, so Volkswagen will still have to do something to get the cars in Ohio and everywhere else meeting the EPA requirements.
As stated elsewhere this will probably be mostly software update. As anyone who watches "Street Outlaws", the show about street drag racers, knows: there is almost infinite variability in how you program a cars electronic ignition and fuel injection.
The State of Ohio, if they wanted to be bastards, could require that an owner show proof of getting the recall repair prior to renewing tags.
I think states with emissions testing will certainly do this, otherwise they have no way to know if they are still getting BS readings or not.
It is an incredible mess, and it's unbelievable that many levels of people in the company were obviously aware of this fraud and permitted it.
This isn’t only a US problem though. They cheated in Europe as well, apparently.
Volkswagen is probably one of the greatest of “crony capitalism” stories in history.
Originally a brainchild of Adolf Hitler, using the talents of Ferdinand Porsche, the “People’s Car” was a marketing scheme to “put the German people” behind the wheel. In 1937, the year of its conception, less than 1 German in 50 possessed an automobile. Hitler graciously accepted a down payment for the purchase of one of the “KdF-Wagen” from thousands of German working families, but somehow, all this investment ended up in military development, with very few actually getting into the hands of German consumers.
The later history of Volkswagen was rather checkered, as its workforce during the Second World War was at times as much as 80% slave labor (from nearby concentration camps), and in 1946, there were only a few parts of the original factory still standing. The facilities were offered to a British manufacturer, who despised the vehicle as “Noisy, leaks, ugly and uncomfortable to ride in or drive”, and later to Henry Ford II, whose comptroller said, that even for free, it would be no bargain. Finally using Marshall Plan dollars, the company relaunched as a subsidiary of the German state of Lower Saxony, and gradually overcame its early shortcomings, gaining wide acceptance, and becoming one of the best selling of ANY model in history, even surpassing the Model T Ford, and penetrating virtually every market worldwide. Along the way, the company acquired Auto Union (the Audi) and NSU, vastly expanding their product line and eventually these models supplanted the older rear-mounted air-cooled engined vehicles and their various design modifications.
A Federal recall will be mandated, just as many others are done all the time for various problems in cars. People in Ohio will be given the opportunity to get the cars upgraded to run in spec. Probably the dealers will have to do it any time they service one. Still, if you live in a non-smog check state and you have it serviced by a third party you could probably keep running the car using the 'cheater' fuel injection mapping as long as you want to.
Very occasionally FedGov has taken a harder line on recalls. Honda was forced to offer every owner of their three-wheel ATV's a huge cash discount on a trade in for a new ATV, and to crush the ones acquired as they were found to be extremely unsafe.
GM made more than 10x VW in political donations, and got rewarded for it while VW is facing evisceration.
Looks more like political “total war”: pay up or die.
Might be interesting to monitor political donations from other car companies. I expect they’ll take a sudden interest and get out some very large checkbooks. In the meantime, I suspect an interesting prioritization of payments from VW right before bankruptcy is declared, selectively routing much of the big pile pile of fine-and-debt-destined cash prior to oddly not having any left.
There are enough states requiring emissions tests (CA, NY, parts of GA, many others) that VW will be killed by retrofitting EPA-legal emission control systems, and the market for used VW diesels will be disrupted by buyer not knowing whether a given vehicle is either “fixed and under-powered” or “good performance and illegal to sell”. Remember, it’s illegal (correct me if wrong) to sell a vehicle which you know has a sub-par emissions system.
Sure, you might not have to fix yours, but you may have serious trouble disposing of it.
See #48.
The diesel engines of today are far cleaner and more efficient than any other internal combustion engine on the world market.
This has nothing to do emissions or enviromental quality.
Taxes on fuel (federal, state, sales, etc.) are the prime motivator for keeping fuel economy down, and fuel demand up. Fuel economy is the bain of the feds and oil industry’s existence.
Where did you get this number? Has any government agency taken any action against VW? A stock market reaction to disclosures is not a fine. A stock price plunge is a penalty for having a management team who is stupid and/or dishonest but not a fine. Unless there is an administrative action of which I'm unaware, using the term "fine" to describe a stock plunge is misleading.
In 1998 the EPA’s fine for the same type violation to the major diesel truck engine mfgs. was about $90 million.
Automakers have been cheating for decades. They inject air into the exhaust, and dilute the gases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_air_injection
Secondary air injection (commonly known as air injection, or colloquially smog pump or pollution pump) is a vehicle emissions control strategy introduced in 1966, wherein fresh air is injected into the exhaust stream to allow for a fuller combustion of exhaust gases.
Isn’t this all about ridiculous EPA emissions regs that are based on too much CO2? And of course that VW voted to have a non-union shop in the south. I bet that really irked Obama and the union thugs. Time for a shakedown of Europe. Surely this is the last thing the Germans need, on top of their jihadi invasion.
I am glad this company is crashing. I hope they go bankrupt. Volkswagen has for more than 40 years been a leading hard core advocate of the homosexual agenda. No Christian should ever, ever own a Volkswagen.
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Mere speculation but I am guessing there will be some kind of government mandated buy back. VW will take these cars and sell them in Mexico and other parts of the world. The govt penalties could be huge but one wonders if they will hold back in fear of breaking the company.
LOL. ALL restrictions originate in California. From there it's just trickle-down to elsewhere.
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