Volkswagen Reaches Deal in U.S. Over Emissions Scandal | Hacker News Reader

Volkswagen Reaches Deal in U.S. Over Emissions Scandal

nytimes.com

32 pointsValG35 comments

When the news of VW emissions fraud first broke, I thought, "corporate death penalty!" That'll teach 'em. Not playing by the rules on an industrial scale has the consequence that you don't get to participate in our economy at all.

Of course, the corporate death penalty would only amplify and accelerate the hardship of hundreds of thousands of "innocent" employees and others in the VW ecosystem.

Punishment doesn't work. We already know VW management doesn't feel responsible; they blame it on 'low-level' people. Does anybody seriously think VW or GM won't do this kind of thing again?

As a society, we can't allow crimes of this magnitude to occur in the first place. What do we need to change so things like this don't happen?

Transparency. Transparent accounting makes sure financial problems are caught before they snowball. Transparent engineering -- including code -- will prevent this kind of engineering fraud.

(That doesn't necessarily mean Free Software, but certainly auditable by the public and regulators.)

You can keep a company and most of its staff running while still wiping out shareholders and current high-level management. That's basically how the GM bailout worked.

I wonder how much they will be offering people? I own a 2011 Golf TDI, and NADA is showing suggested retail as like 11.5k, which is 2k less than I purchased it for used from a private seller about a year ago, and at the time, nada private sale was at like 14k. If VW wants to give people full retail as of the current market value (ie: after the emissions scandal came to light and value decreased), then this will be quite the ripoff. I would rather take the initial 5k offered to owners in the first proposal for compensation.

My guess is that there will be large lookup charts with prices for every year/car/mileage combination designed to make people like yourself carefully consider weather they want the 5 grand or the buyout.

If it were me I'd keep the car as it came and enjoy the better performance.

If your state performs emissions testing, they could deny you a tag renewal if the vehicle fails. You'd need the "fixed" ECU firmware to drive the vehicle on public roads.

I read somewhere yesterday that the price would be the price before the news of the scandal broke out. But that was part of the onslaught of rumors that came out yesterday. And apparently we would have a couple years to decide.

Owners will have the option to get the cars fixed or have VW buy them back.

The article says that the estimated cost of buybacks is $7 billion. With 480,000 cars in play, that's an average of $14,000. Clearly they're accounting for depreciation here. I wonder if they're accounting for the dive in price I'm sure these cars have had in the secondary market since the scandal broke.

From what's said here, it's hard to tell if the owners will be screwed over or not.

VW is going to use the value as of September 2015, before the scandal broke. That value is around $14k for a 2012 Golf TDI.

Yesterday, Jalopnik reported an additional $5k compensation on top of the buyback, but I can't find the source anymore; they may have retracted it after the actual details came out. But the NYT article does mention "additional substantial compensation" for those affected, so there will be something extra on top.

I bought a 2012 Golf TDI for $26k, and I think I'll take the buyback partially because I feel wronged, and because I just moved back to SF and owning a car here doesn't make sense. If this scandal hadn't happened, I'd be looking at 13 to 15k on craigslist, so getting more than that from VW itself will definitely satisfy me.

I'm an owner, and while the info is not complete yet, I like where its heading. Honestly, I just want a different car, and not to be punished financially for their behavior. I'll take a buyout and if there's cash above the BB value, I'll be happier still.

What vehicle would you replace your VW with? (simply curious)

This is the conundrum. I'm used to the sight of 45mpg on my dashboard. Passat TDI was kind of my perfect car, so I really don't know what I'll go for next.

VW screwed up- BADLY. But I lost interest as soon as I saw the picture of Joyce the protestor. Good grief, a TDI still gets way better gas mileage and is probably still cleaner than an equivalent gasoline car. I would totally buy one with cash on the hood today. I think that some perspective is needed here. Let existing cars carry on, make VW fix as well as possible and give them greater scrutiny until trust is earned back.

Why do you say it's cleaner than a gasoline car?

the engine software update, applied in the recall last year, by itself made the cars pass emission thresholds in other countries, which had a lower bar than US. I wonder if VW's plan will be to buy back the cars and resell them in Europe or Latin America.

I read yesterday, caveat: while most news was still rumored, that VW would not be permitted to resell the vehicles.

Not permitted by whom? Can the EPA prevent them from re-selling them in Mexico? I would not think so.

The EPA probably can't directly, but the US government has full control over what crosses its borders. If the appropriate government arms decide VW is not allowed to export these cars from the United States intact, that will effectively prevent VW from reselling them elsewhere.

Surely they can resell them outside the EPAs jurisdiction.

VW won't be doing a buyback because they simply decided on their own to do so. It will be part of a deal with the US to settle the case. If the terms include a resale prohibition, VW will have to honor that if they want to keep the case settled.

See my comment to your sibling. The US government, though not necessarily the EPA, can certainly prohibit VW from exporting the affected cars.

Was there a noticeable impact on performance or efficiency?

There was a survey that went out to VW owners a while ago trying to gauge interest on different deals. The options presented were, in exchange for surrendering your car at a dealership, you'd get:

a) value of the car in Sept 2015 + 20%

b) value of the car in Sept 2015 + 30%

c) a replacement of your car - same model, same specs, same features, same color, but the 2016 model. Lease/loan payments would stay the same and you'd basically just get a newer replacement.

They specifically noted that the value would be determined by using a reputable car value estimation reference, so it won't just be some random lookup table that they've pulled out of thin air. Unfortunately, I don't see an easy way to look up historical values from KBB (haven't checked NADA), so I really don't know what the value of my Jetta was in Sept.

None of those things were officially from VW, but the survey was supposed to be somewhat confidential, so I can only imagine that the survey was contracted by VW.

Again: THIS IS UNOFFICIAL INFORMATION AND SHOULD NOT BE RELIED ON.

Odd. I, owner of a 2014 Passat TDI, never received any such survey.

I have a 2013, and I didn't see one either.

VW should be sending a check to everyone who lived or worked near a freeway during the time these cars were on the road.

While I am all for a substantial fine I will be very disappointed if the fine exceeds that given GM for their ignition key recall. There were thirty million plus cars in that recall for an issue known over decade, an issue which directly lead to death, and they got off for less than a billion.

While some might claim "pollution" from the TDIs is killing people the link is not direct and negligible in the big picture when you look at volumes. Frankly I think VW should be blocked from selling any TDI they have in stock, new or used and buy back them all. But a separate fine beyond that? Again, not if exceeds the fine giving GM which by the way also topped Toyota's fine for unintended acceleration which could not even be proven.

How is vehicle pollution "negligible"? The effects of pollution are quite measurable and we have pretty good estimates of how many people it kills in aggregate. It's entirely possible for pollution to kill vastly more people than a mechanical fault, albeit it's harder to point at them individually.

Well that's a big problem for any lawsuit, the uncertainty inherent in estimating this kind of hazard makes it much harder to prove that someone has been harmed in a legally sound manner. Each side can can get pretty much whatever conclusions they want by paying the right experts.

And in the absence of proof our court system is biased in favor of defendants (that's not exactly relevant to negotiations over this fine however since the EPA only has to prove that they broke regulations).

I'd guess that NOx can be a meaningful hazard in certain places with lots of cars and/or special geography (LA County for example) but almost nowhere else. I can't prove that hypothesis of course.

Just a quick note, but picking LA County to minimize the impact of something isn't very useful.. LA County has a higher population than 43 states.

What I'm saying is that any analysis is subject to a great deal of uncertainty, not that the impact is minimal.

The guess is just for fun. Do you disagree that the effect of NOx probably varies greatly between LA County and any place without the same amount of traffic or special geography? You're welcome to make your own guess for the purpose of discussion.

While I am all for a substantial fine I will be very disappointed if the fine exceeds that given GM for their ignition key recall.

You should be disappointed if the fine is unjust, GM not withstanding. That's not to say that I don't agree that the GM case was egregious, but let's agree that someone screwed up/had palms greased/plain didn't do their job, and leave GM out of the decision on what to do with VW. Because if we agree that the GM case was handled poorly, then we shouldn't use it as a basis for further cases. Last serial murder got off, so I'll be disappointed if this guy who hacked up ten people gets life?

Set their symbolic heads upon pikes, let them stand as an example to others that may follow. Whether that's a hefty fine, or a buy-back, I don't really know.

Why do you call deaths from excess pollution "negligible" but not deaths from faulty ignition switches? Both are very small numbers compared to the roughly 2.6 million people who die each year in the US, and I'm pretty sure the pollution one is the bigger number.

I'm inclined to believe the pollution from just 500,000 of these vehicles across the country hasn't harmed as many people as the GM scandal, but that isn't the whole story.

The basic idea behind the regulation is that if every manufacturer didn't follow it, there would be a lot more pollution and many more people could be harmed.

Whether or not we agree with that prediction is irrelevant. The people elected representatives who made this law, granting regulatory authority, at least in part to prevent it from happening. They have the authority to collect the fine. How many people were actually harmed has nothing to do with it (at least directly).

It makes more sense to be upset at how GM (partly owned by the government at the time) got off so easy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com