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Comment by socalnate1 | Hacker News Reader

It seems odd to me that most of the financial windfall here goes to Volkswagen owners. (2/3 anyway). Wasn't the "damage" done almost exclusively environmental, which affects everyone?

Wouldn't it make more sense to use these large amounts of money to combat the actual damage that was done? (e.g. environmental cleanup initiatives?)

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This settlement doesn't actually count all the fines, the EPA will get their cash for violations of the Clean Air Act at a later date. This is the initial fix to get the vehicles into compliance or off the street and refunding customers who purchased fraudulent vehicles.

VW owners paid a lot of money to purchase a product that was advertised to perform to certain specs. VW lied about this, and the cars didn't actually perform to these specs so the people who purchased the car assuming it would work as advertised definitely deserve something. This is important because in many places VW owners may not be able to legally drive their VW anymore (or at least in the future), because it doesn't meet emissions laws, so they suffer large damage there.

>The settlement, to be announced on Tuesday in Washington, includes $10.03 billion to offer buybacks to owners of about 475,000 polluting vehicles

They'll buy back my diesel so that I can get another one that pollutes less, thus getting my cheater car off the road, thus addressing the environmental damage going forward.

They're not just paying me money as a "we're sorry" factor.

Because the VW owners were the ones who paid their own money for a product that was falsely advertised.

Its not like these cars caused direct damage to the environment that can be cleaned up, they're still relatively low in emissions compared to a lot of other cars on the road.

The VW owners get their money refunded as part of the settlement. So, they are no longer stuck with a lemon (And get to pocket depreciation.)

The extra $5,000/car could have been put towards planting trees, cleaning up an ex-industrial site, shingling San Francisco's city hall with solid gold...

Yes, there will be many more billions of fines levied at a later date (this is an admitted violation of the Clean Air Act which could be a fine up to $37,500 per vehicle or an additional $17.8B in fines). The EPA doesn't really care about getting their cash first, they would rather the vehicles fixed or off the road.

Oh no, mind you, the tarmac didn't suffer, it's just another mil added to the cancer risk for every person in the cities these things are roaming wild.

(That must be reason #192845 why "capitalist healthcare" doesn't work: often, you only need it because other peoples actions require you to, and they're not paying for it.)

Well the VW drivers got to drive a car, so they did get some benefit out of owning it even if it wasn't exactly as advertised. Meanwhile the rest of us got to breathe their pollution and die sooner. It's not "they're lower emissions than other vehicles", it's that they aren't as low emissions as they said they were. If people were in the market for a LEV and they bought a VW over a car that actually produced the emissions that the VW claimed to, that's an insane amount more pollution than the alternative car.

It's not just VW owners who were lied to. It's everyone who had to breathe the air around them.

Given that VW owners now know, and are getting a payout, maybe you can sue them for harming you and profiting from it?

The first hurdle is standing. Since most of the other cars on the road are more harmful to you than the VW LEVs, you'd have to show that 'but for that purchase', you'd have been in better shape, which is unlikely. That said, the parent makes a decent point - if they were looking specifically for LEVs, they might well have bought an electric or hybrid vs. a diesel. In that case, you might be able to show standing. Of course, then you have to prove that the amount of emissions involved in producing the electricity for a Tesla are less than the emissions produced by the VW. I have no idea what the math on that looks like, so it could be impossible, or very easy, but you've got to prove it to win the suit. Because civil cases have a lower bar, you might be able to get to this point without too much effort.

What really kills you though, is in establishing mens rea, because it's absolutely impossible. Since consumers could not have known that emissions were falsified, they could not have had the intent to harm you for profit. Again here you slightly benefit from the lower burden of intent on civil cases, as negligence or recklessness can count, but that's out the window on the facts, as the owner was specifically choosing a lower emissions vehicle in the first place, presumably so that they would be killing their brethren less, or less quickly.

> Meanwhile the rest of us got to breathe their pollution and die sooner.

The people who own the cars breathed in the pollution too. Almost certainly more than people who did not own one.

I'm not sure about that. Pollution comes out of the back of the car, and the drivers sit well in front of the tail pipe. As long as they're not standing behind their running car for long periods of time, the person inhaling most of the exhaust will be the car behind them in traffic or more likely, the pedestrian standing beside them on the sidewalk at a red light.

there is money set aside for environmental. so I don't see the problem as at least the people who still have the cars can get out from under them if they want. I actually traded mine off in May and after the scandal broke I don't even want to know what happened to the price if you could even trade them.

2.7 billion so far doesn't look all that bad to me, followed up with another 500 million or so to the states.

The real question you should be asking, will the states prove they put it towards the environment or merely general fund it or worse pass it off to cronies who suddenly have environmental solutions companies and investments.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/09/opinion/dirty-school-buses...

Well looks like VW will also fix the other more monstrous source of pollution, school buses.

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