So it seems to me that if VW has to detune their engine performance, they'll similarly have to compensate owners of the affected cars.
I don't think that would quite work because the new sales would also factor in distrust and changes in consumer perception and taste which further reduces the amount of sales VW might have. You'd essentially have to do this in a vacuum where the updated vehicles' sales were subtracted from the non-updated vehicles and the numbers crunched on the premise that nobody ever found out about this and it was just fixed and swept under the rug.
Either way, I like your idea and I hope these owners get adequately compensated for this.
But that would be appropriate, because these factors would negatively affect the potential resale value for the defrauded owner.
If the CO2 emissions had happened to be ever so slightly higher than 120g/km then I couldn't have bought it, and would have picked the V70 D4 instead.
Obviously, if VW had been fair, maybe they couldn't have squeezed 191hp and 5L/100km consumption out of it. Suppose it would have been 170hp and 5L/100km instead to reach the required emissions targets. Now instead of better perforomance than the competition (such as the Volvo) it would have be worse! It's entirely possible I wouldn't have picked it.
So as a customer I'm not really suffering from VW's wrongdoing here. At least not yet (until I get a message saying my not-yet-received car will be delayed 2 months and is already less powerful than when I ordered it). Volvo on the other hand may well have already lost a sale of a new car. Makes you wonder how many sales they lost, and makes you realize how important accurate tests are.
So this scandal is all your fault, then? :-)
"*MPG figures are obtained from laboratory testing and intended for comparisons between vehicles and may not reflect real driving results."
=/
[1] http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/volkswagen/golf-vii-2013...
Furthermore, the owner of the 2009 Jetta TDI will have less bargaining room than the owner of the 2014 Audi A3 taking into consideration the price, age, mileage and status of the vehicle. I wouldn't be surprised if VW argue the older vehicles (say 2009-2012) benefited from the software more than the 2013+ vehicles and thus are entitled to even LESS compensation.
"That's a bold strategy. Let's see how it plays out."
Aside from the costs of a recall and class-action lawsuits, VW will also be looking down the barrel of some pretty ugly EPA fines. I've seen numbers as high as $32,000 per affected sold vehicle. Of course the actual fines will be a lot less, but still probably pretty substantial.
> how do they expect to get people to bring their cars in for the fix when the fix can be expected to make their cars get worse fuel economy and a decrease in power?
It will depend on the state. In California, owners won't have a choice; if there is an emissions-related recall you have to provide proof that you've had your vehicle repaired as part of the inspection / licensing process.
Which then means that vehicles from other states won't sell well to Californians, and other states may well have some kind of similar requirements (though I think California's is the most strict, as usual).
11m cars times $1000 and you're at $11b!
Slip it into their vehicle next time they're in for some other routine issue.
https://www.gov.uk/getting-an-mot/the-mot-test
I guess most of Europe has something similar.
One option would be to make it an automatic fail of the emissions tests for any car where this has not been fixed. This obviously won't work universally but for locations where emissions testing is required periodically this could help move the process along.
As long as the car is under warranty (the first 3 years, for VW in UK for example) the owner is required to service it following the manufacturers recommendation. This pretty much guarantees that at least for 3 years, new cars will be brought to service regularly.
If I was a manufacturer of modern cars, I'd include the requirement to always install the latest software at every service, in the terms of the warranty.