VW’s Former CEO Charged in Germany Over Diesel Rigging

I would hope VW puts into production some of their claimed Year 2020 EV models, if so, they will have restored my faith in the company.

Are the other car manufacturers going to be held to account as well?

And of course not just German industry: “ICCT and ADAC showed the biggest deviations from Volvo, Renault, Jeep, Hyundai, Citroën and Fiat.“

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal

The engine control systems were from Bosch, also german, so other car manufacturers that also used Bosch for the engine/fuel injection/emissions control subsystem may have also made use of the "test conditions" bypass.

Not sure if this other scandal has a name yet, but it's basically a combined diesel+petrolgate, and certainly involves more than just VW: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/05/bmw-daimler...

"Between 2006 and 2014, the commission suspects that the “circle of five” carmakers ... colluded to limit, delay or avoid the introduction of selective catalytic reduction systems (SCRs) and “Otto” particle filters."

The best thing about this scandal is that (at least for now) all new VW cars have 6 years of warranty/72k miles. Such a great deal, couldn't say no to that.

So of all of the modern generation of passenger car diesels we're there any that achieved what they were supposed to? If Mercedes and VW were both cheating, who else made that type of diesel? BMW? The US never seemed to see many passenger vehicles of that type.

Not only that, it caused people to die. Diesel emissions are one of the most dangerous kinds of emissions from a public health perspective, especially in populated areas. Because of this emissions testing fraud diesel emissions pollution was worse in many major cities than it would have otherwise been, and the result has been unquestionably a vast loss of life (DALYs, if you prefer), no different than if someone had poisoned a water supply or sold tainted food. But because it has been so diffuse that aspect hasn't gotten quite the attention it deserves.

> It hurts the German auto manufacturing reputation big time.

Does it? US sales figures don't reflect that claim. They'll be back to their 400,000+/y US sales rate in the next year or two. The hit after 2015 was modest, never going below 300,000.

I don't know about the rest of the world, but in Southern Africa, VW's service is absolutely terrible.

The cars themselves are not bad, but the service centres are downright dishonest and very unhelpful. So, for me at least, the real reputation problem is their attitude towards the customer.

I know the sort of instructions you get to become a rogue engineer. I want x achieved by date y. I do not care how you do it, I don't even want to know that. But unless you manage that let nobody come back alive.

Excess diesel exhaust particles, multiplied by liters of fuel flowing through the cars over the years. (Edit:) The cars were allowed to emit a certain amount of dangerous substances, causing X amounts of deaths per year. Instead they in reality emitted a larger amount, and caused X + Y deaths per year.

So VW traded Y number of deaths for extra marketshare and profit.

It's extrapolation based on the effects of that type of pollution and the amount of pollution.

It's not wrong but it's not telling the whole truth either. More rigorous metrics like YPLL would be better. A 20yo that drops dead is different from an elderly person that dies of lung issues a few years before cancer would have got them and more meaningful metrics attempt to capture this. "Deaths" is just a number and it doesn't tell you much. Age adjusted metrics don't make for bolt headlines or effective emotional appeals so it's understandable why nobody uses them.

The NY Times published an article[1] in 2015 that asked a few public health experts to estimate the loss of life in the US due to the fraud.

An MIT study claims over 1,200 premature deaths in Europe due to the fraud. [2][3]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/upshot/how-many-deaths-di...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/science/volkswagen-emissi...

[3] https://news.mit.edu/2017/volkswagen-emissions-premature-dea...

When people are Outraged(TM) and they want someone's (metaphorical) head on a platter Now(TM), not after going through all those boring technicalities that come with the outdated concept known as due process.

(in case it's not, the /s should be obvious)

Heard someone saying "What took so long?" in my office.

I pointed out that the Enron scandal events started in the 90s, started making news in 2001, and Skilling was sentenced in 2006.

The wheels of justice grind slowly.

The German government owns 25% of VW. It is reasonable to suggest they wouldn't want to do a real investigation and bring charges as doing so directly hurts their best interest. It is even reasonable to suggest that the immediate investigations would have been called off if the German government felt they could get away with it, but public pressure has forced this.

Of course reasonable doesn't mean it is the truth. I have no idea what the truth is, but the fears are reasonable.

> Not sure what made anybody think otherwise

Maybe a lifetime of seeing governments fail to enforce laws against the rich?

The US is not done with VW. The SEC has just filed a lawsuit against VW for lying to investors.

In this case Engineer is played by the head of the division for VW.

It depends on the country they are in. They were not so generous here in Germany, cause our government still protects VW. Prosecutors have none of it, but that takes time and so far they don't really feel the heat.

>I know several people who had diesel VWs and let VW buy them back for almost the same price they paid for them two years earlier. Why didn't you do that?

Parent made the wrong choices. I can tell because they talked about using the car in the city. It's the wrong vehicle for city driving. FWIW I bought a 2012 VW Golf TDI for around $25k out the door. Drove almost 200k mi before it was bought back, received $18.5k or so back on it from VW, Bosch payments and the initial 'we're sorry package'. It was my second TDI after a 98 Jetta TDI. There was simply no other competition on the market for efficient long distance highway travel, which is what I used it for... and for people that asked me about its mileage, I would tell them... it only makes sense if you drive highways for at least a half hour each day. I was personally responsible for 2 Golf TDI's, a Passat TDI, and a A3 TDI being purchased by friends and family. All but one were bought back for values that were over market. The one that wasn't was because he sold it before the scandal broke.

So no, I don't understand the butthurt on lost value. It lost value because that's what vehicles do after a few years (or even after you drive them off the lot), not because of the scandal. You can speculate all you want, but the fact was once the buyback happened you had three options to replace the car left in the market segment. 1. A pre-2007 Benz or VW that overnight became impossible to purchase 2. A 2016 'fixed' TDI that had all the issues of the DPF. 3. One of the few Chevy Cruze diesels that were ludicrously overpriced and had poor option choice (no hatchback and standard trans: did you not want to capture some of VW's market?)

I would still very much expect that even in their dirty state, TDI's put out far less carbon emissions than gas vehicles do. NOX emissions, while a problem are less of a concern for long distance rural trips. Had I done it in a gas car I'm quite certain the longterm effect would be worse, even moreso if I flew in a jet for those trips.

And yeah, absolutely charge the people involved for covering up the testing. They are responsible not just for the pollution they caused while the cars were produced, but for the future pollution caused by the void of more efficient small vehicles that electric isn't ready to fill yet (outside of burbs). I'm pro electric, it just wouldn't work for my use case. For example, I tell people with a 5mi commute to a train station to buy old Nissan Leafs, because it's ideal for their use case. It doesn't make sense owning a diesel for that because they soot up and have issues when they aren't run enough.

Only Gen-1 cars had the buy-back as they could not be fixed with software.

Gen-2 cars they came up with a way to reprogram them to get to pass; but as I mentioned it comes with a huge impact of mileage and performance. Us gen-2 owners got about 10% of the vehicle purchase price to make up for the loss of resale value as the vehicles are not what was advertised or nearly as desirable.

And I agree fully with you that they screwed everyone living on this planet the worst.

> An honorable person finds a little shame in that, even when they can claim innocence.

... what? So, if someone falls for a pyramid scheme they should be ashamed of themselves? If someone gets tricked by a phone scam they should be ashamed?

Even in a sea of "you are always at fault!" bad takes, this has to be one of the worst. Victims should never feel shame that others abused them/their trust.

There were quite a few scientists feeding information to the USSR, some under the belief no one nation should have this power. Nuclear weapons weren't that secret.

I know, but if you are used to having millions in the bank and living at that level, having to do your own shopping? make your own beds? How about using the same room where you eat dinner to host your cocktail parties? Driving yourself places, flying coach everywhere. Losing your memberships in the various athletic clubs and private clubs. When you compare the burn rate (or expenditures) of someone who goes through a million dollars a year (easy to do if you're a point one percenter), the things you have to give up to fit that into a 200K/year budget (call it 130K after taxes) means giving up a lot of stuff. That is super painful and an excellent punishment.

I forgot to take into account that it was a foreign company...