32 ms·

Volkswagen Chief Martin Winterkorn Resigns Amid Emissions Scandal

176 points by aaronharnly 11y ago

Scramblejams 11y ago
He was only in his job for about 5 months, but I'm not familiar with his previous work history at VW. Was he in some significant sense responsible for the scandal by way of his prior responsibilities? Or is his resignation, for lack of a better way I can think of to put it, an honor move? Edit: Thanks for the clarifications, all. Although he assumed Ferdinand Piëch's former position as chairman in April 2015, he was VW's CEO since 2007.
- pc86 11y ago
  He has said publicly that he is not aware of any wrong-doing on his part. I imagine that just about any board would require just about any CEO to resign after something like this, though.
  - Scramblejams 11y ago
    When it comes to a relatively new CEO, I'm not so sure about that. GM didn't require Mary Barra's resignation over the ignition switch scandal, for example. (Though admittedly that one was smaller than VW's.) Edit: Winterkorn took over as chairman of the supervisory board of VW in April, but as petewailes pointed out, he's been CEO since 2007, so his resignation makes more sense.
    - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
      Is it the difference between deliberate/undefendable and simple cost savings? I'm not very familiar with the switch issue.
    - mzs 11y ago
      The cost between GM and VW here is two orders of magnitude, the stock did not drop by a third, and the EPA and CARB were not involved.
  - duaneb 11y ago
    I would imagine at the level of management complexity, liability, and brand awareness of VW, which details get reported to whom becomes very important. He may have been technically unaware of cheating, for instance, but may have been aware of a "test optimizer". This is about taking a fall. It's up to the courts (I assume, American, not German) to establish how much he is actually at fault. But the idea that they sold 11M vehicles with hardware cheating the emissions test makes his claim fairly absurd. That kind of decision has got to be made at a high level, even if it's just choosing different budgets without looking closely.
    - msandford 11y ago
      > But the idea that they sold 11M vehicles with hardware cheating the emissions test makes his claim fairly absurd. So a CEO must know every detail about every component of every subsystem of every system in every trim level of every car of every brand that the company sells? If that's really true, we're headed back to the early industrial revolution. Nothing can have more than a few dozen or perhaps hundred parts, and integration of say electronics and mechanical things will be rare, as it'll be the rare CEO who knows enough about both to meet your standard.
      - wpietri 11y ago
        No. But broadly, a CEO is responsible for everything that happens on their watch. And they are specifically responsible for designing their organizations in such a way that the organization behaves responsibly. Ignorance cannot be an excuse for bad management. If we allow that, then executives can set things up so that they always appear ignorant. E.g., imagine a CEO says, "I don't care how you dispose of that toxic waste, just make sure that it's cheap. And of course it has to be safe [wink, wink]. Just don't bother me with details [wink, wink]." Any employee will know the real message.
        nmrm2 11y ago
        Right, like the "GM nod". The principle that CEOs are responsible for what happens on their watch is major reason cited for their levels of compensation. You don't get it both ways.
- petewailes 11y ago
  He's been CEO of Volkswagen since '07 IIRC, so whilst he's unlikely responsible, he's in an untenable situation.
  - Scramblejams 11y ago
    Ah, thanks, that clears it up. I didn't realize he'd been CEO for that long, I only knew that he took over for Ferdinand Piëch in April of this year.
    - petewailes 11y ago
      No worries!
- flixic 11y ago
  When stock is down 35%, I'm sure stakeholders want to do something to reverse the direction. This is a highly visible change.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
    So, how many on HN are going to admit to buying up VW stock right now?
    - mrgordon 11y ago
      May it go to zero. If the penalties get high enough, I could see bankruptcy wiping out shareholders.
      - flyinglizard 11y ago
        German government is never-ever going to let this happen. Lower Saxony (IIRC) is a considerable shareholder in VW AG.
    - mirceal 11y ago
      buying VW stock makes perfect sense. you look at what the value of the company is and when you see a large disconnect between the value and the stock price you buy.
- korisnik 11y ago
  >He was only in his job for about 5 months He has been CEO since 2007, before any of the VW models with defeat devices were introduced. Some of the German analysts and experts who are knowledgeable about the industry itself have said that there is not even the slightest chance that he didn't know this. There's an interesting talk in German here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKILi7PN37A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKILi7PN37A
- maxxxxx 11y ago
  He gets credit for everything good that comes out of VW even without his knowledge. So he should also take the blame for everything bad that happens.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Agreed. Its the job - being responsible. Nothing unexpected here.
- mzs 11y ago
  The background in broad brush strokes is that a number of wealthy families are fighting (two of them immensely powerful in particular) as well as a union and state. This is what you see publicly of this private battle now.
korisnik 11y ago
Somewhat relevant, allegations have come out that the German government was aware of VW cheating on emissions tests http://www.independent.ie/world-news/volkswagen-scandal-german-government-accused-of-covering-up-rigged-emissions-data-31552152.html http://www.independent.ie/world-news/volkswagen-scandal-germ...
- yc1010 11y ago
  I am currently shopping for a car and now need to keep in mind which brands/models are affected by this fiasco as another factor in my shopping. Here in Ireland motor tax is based on CO2 emissions I can see some very very unhappy VW drivers in this country in coming months if their tax suddenly jumps by an order of magnitude due to this avoidance scheme putting these cars into the high emission bands I do wonder how Revenue will handle this, not only some people might find themselves with a more polluting car but a larger and unexpected tax bill will impact peoples pockets directly.
  - matt4077 11y ago
    This is mostly about NOX, not CO2.
  - organsnyder 11y ago
    The CO2 amount should remain the same—the issue is with other pollutants that cause smog. The only reason that CO2 might go up is if the fix involves increasing fuel consumption. However, you might not even need the fix in Ireland, as many European countries (as I understand it) have laxer smog requirements to begin with. Regardless, though, I wouldn't buy a VW product right now, wherever I lived.
    - tadfisher 11y ago
      Euro standards are backwards; they have stricter CO2 emissions regulations, but are lax on NOx. I'd imagine they don't have a lot of smog events like what happened in California during the 60s and 70s.
hackuser 11y ago
Will the EPA and other automotive regulators test other brands for similar problems? Perhaps this practice is widespread. Testing them seems obvious, but I know little about how regulators work. EDIT: VW isn't the first. From the other story on HN's front page right now [1] [Caterpillar Inc and Cummins Engine Co] agreed to pay $83.4 million in civil penalties after federal officials found evidence that they were selling heavy duty diesel engines equipped with “defeat devices” that allowed the engines to meet EPA emission standards during testing but disabled the emission control system during normal highway driving. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10264894 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10264894 EDIT2: On queue, from the NY Times: "Volkswagen Test Rigging Follows a Long Auto Industry Pattern" http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/24/business/international/volkswagen-test-rigging-follows-a-long-auto-industry-pattern.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/24/business/international/vol...
- Shivetya 11y ago
  The EPA has already stated that all diesel passenger cars will be retested. I think all cars should go through the same complete testing process and by more than one organizations. The EPA didn't find this issue, a university testing team did
  - e40 11y ago
    Does anyone know how the test was detected? I'm thinking they noticed either the revving of the engine without the wheels turning or just one set of wheels were turning. Hopefully the EPA will test in a real situation, by attaching the test equipment to the car and actually driving it. That should foil the cheaters.
    - tzs 11y ago
      From the EPA's description: "The 'switch' senses whether the vehicle is being tested or not based on various inputs including the position of the steering wheel, vehicle speed, the duration of the engine's operation, and barometric pressure. These inputs precisely track the parameters of the federal test procedure used for emission testing for EPA certification purposes." Somewhere I saw a description of the EPA test procedure. It is not just a simple small set of test points. It is a long sequence of operations, calling for specific speeds and durations and rates of change simulating a variety of operating conditions ranging from a wide open freeway to a New York City traffic jam. I believe I read that the order of the various test segments might change from test to test, but each segment's parameters were very strict.
simi_ 11y ago
Edit: Thank you for the several downvotes. I initially wrote a stupid rant based on this [0] about how VW's ex-CEO doesn't speak English, but a quick Youtube search proved that was wrong [1]. Oops! I'll just leave some quick facts that I dug up in the process: * VW just had another scandal that made it to HN recently, regarding hiding security vulnerabilities [2] * VW Group numbers for 2014: €204B of which €12.7B revenue, 583k employees [3] * the board made some weird-ass declarations about the ex-CEO [4] My confidence in VW is shaken to the point that I'll never buy another car from them again (I didn't like how they artificially segment the market by owning Audi/VW/Skoda/etc anyway), but how do other German manufacturers compare? [5] 0: http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/17/9347275/auto-industry-meet-the-apple-effect http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/17/9347275/auto-industry-meet... 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEPJluU09RU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEPJluU09RU 2: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-14/vw-has-spent-two-years-trying-to-hide-a-big-security-flaw http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-14/vw-has-spe... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group 4: http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/23/9383835/volkswagen-board-statement-diesel-scandal http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/23/9383835/volkswagen-board-s... 5: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/volkswagen-may-not-only-car-185400060.html http://finance.yahoo.com/news/volkswagen-may-not-only-car-18...
- fein 11y ago
  On point #2, this was not only VW. That list even included Ferrari. On point #4, this is pretty normal for any large company playing damage control. GM did the exact same song and dance in 2014. I don't think I've lost any confidence in VW, but we may be looking at different types of cars. I like driving machines that may not be practical, but a hell of an experience to drive. The GTI's have done a great job of this, and I'll probably buy a new one soon. Currently a 2005 MKIV GTI 1.8t. Given that VW tried to cheat emissions to improve performance and mileage, it's exactly something that a person like me actually wants (not the cheating the system, but the driver benefits).
  - xgbi 11y ago
    > Given that VW tried to cheat emissions to improve performance and mileage, it's exactly something that a person like me actually wants (not the cheating the system, but the driver benefits). No. They cheated to pass the exam on the cheap, instead of investing in the required R&D to create a motor that gives out the same amount of power while reducing emissions. Given that they already had their engine for the EU, they didn't want to research a new one that conforms to the more drastic emissions of USA for Diesel. That's just a shitty workaround that was there for too long. That it has been in there since 2008 just shows how careless they were. I'm wondering what the investigation in the chain of decision will unveil. You can't hide this for so long without some pretty intense omerta everywhere.
codeshaman 11y ago
As I'm observing this scandal unfold, I find it amusing that all the eyes are on the VW company and how it affects it's finances, it's reputation, etc While the effects on the company are extreme, I think we should also consider the broader and ultimate consequences of this trickery. The fact that those cars pollute a lot more than officially acknowledged. I've read figures like 40x as much. Does that make those 11 million VW cars caught cheating the politically accepted pollution equivalent of 440 million cars ? Another interesting question - if VW was caught doing it, who else is doing it ? And if other companies (and factories, etc) are doing it, what is the purpose of the international pollution treaties ? How does it affect the plans to reduce pollution, given that the numbers that we base our calculations on might be off by factors of 40x ?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- geofft 11y ago
  Here's a back-of-the-envelope calculation that the cheating caused 100,000 deaths due to health problems from increased pollution: https://twitter.com/Dymaxion/status/646489476651462657 https://twitter.com/Dymaxion/status/646489476651462657
  - refurb 11y ago
    Author's caveat: "And I recognize just how far my envelope-math is from a real model of health outcome risk difference"
  - fauigerzigerk 11y ago
    100,000 deaths from 500,000 cars? That's hard to believe.
    - scott_karana 11y ago
      Don't involve "belief", just run the numbers and show your work, unlike the Twitter guy! :-)
DrNuke 11y ago
Problem is they've got the money and the market, CEO can't resign and get away with it, they should pay back all plus a hefty fine. This is much too common nowadays, big corps have no face and are too big to fail, no one is directly accountable and geopolitics are at stake. Hit them hard in the monies, would say, but the risk is fear and a market bubble.
deegles 11y ago
I'm expecting a snarky press release from Tesla any moment now...
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  They'll probably start installing NOx emitters in their cars - with defeat devices that will make them active only during tests) - in order to bring Teslas in line with the rest of the industry.
mtgx 11y ago
And if all of that wasn't bad enough to make you dislike VW, they've now hired BP oil spill lawyers to defend them: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/23/volkswagen-hires-kirkland-ellis-to-defend-emissions-cases http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/23/volkswagen-h...
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  Well, yeah.
harryh 11y ago
Two things that are surprising to me about this story: 1) The secret was kept for so long. How many programmers were involved with the relevant code? How many project managers signed off on it? Surely VW does its own emissions testing internally so some of them must have known. How high up in management did this go? It seems like it must have been quite a few. Amazing that none of them got mad and told someone outside the company. 2) I would never have guessed that emissions from a car engine could vary so widely. 20%? Sure. 50%? Sure. But news outlets are reporting that these cars are emitting at least 10x and possibly as much as 40x NOx as they should. This is clearly because of my ignorance of the details of the engineering here, but I was shocked that such a difference could happen.
- HNaTTY 11y ago
  From what I've read so far, this has to do with heat necessary for the catalytic converter to absorb NOx -- without enough heat, NOx isn't absorbed, so in emissions test mode, they're just running the engine in such a way that more heat is generated to make sure the cat works properly.
  - harryh 11y ago
    Interesting! How much heat are we talking about here? When an engine is just running in normal operation it generates a fair amount of heat naturally. I guess that's not enough?
    - ams6110 11y ago
      Diesel engines run with a surplus of air so they only burn the fuel they need to. They don't really generate a lot of heat unless they are under load (relative to gas engines). Just cruising down the highway a diesel will not need much fuel and will run fairly cool.
      - durin42 11y ago
        The owners manual for the VW TDIs actually warns you to not try and preheat the engine by letting it idle in the winter, because it won't work.
jeromeflipo 11y ago
In July, France 2 (the #1 public national television channel in France) released a documentary [0] that showed to which extent the French auto manufacturer PSA lied about NO2 emissions. At 1h19s [1], Pierre Macaudière, head of emission control systems at PSA, admits that the model tested emits 1700 ppm of NO2, after measuring 200 ppm (the legal limit) with their own machines. At 1h17m11s [2], the researchers commissioned by the EU shows the journalist that not one manufacturer respects the legal limits of 200 ppm. He's frightened to tell the journalist that it's all just a widespread fraud. * [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JFprj6v37Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JFprj6v37Q * [1] https://youtu.be/5JFprj6v37Q?t=1h19s https://youtu.be/5JFprj6v37Q?t=1h19s * [2] https://youtu.be/5JFprj6v37Q?t=1h17m11s https://youtu.be/5JFprj6v37Q?t=1h17m11s
- differentView 11y ago
  If that's true, then there's no way government officials weren't bribed and need to be prosecuted.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    Which is kinda expected, considering the government is the second largest shareholder in VW.
  - ekianjo 11y ago
    Which calls for decentralized inspection, instead of relying again and again on governments to do the right thing. The only thing they are good at is accepting bribes.
    - anigbrowl 11y ago
      Kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater there, no? I was in and out of publicly-run hospitals as a child, I wouldn't be alive today if not for socialized medicine.
      - duncan_bayne 11y ago
vaadu 11y ago
GM killed more than 100 people with a known defective ignition switch. Volkswagen killed ... the air. Guess which company will get the greater penalty from the US government? BTW, GM spends significantly more on lobbying and campaign contributions to political candidates. Source: OpenSecrets <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000042113&cycle=A">Volkswagen</a> https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000042113&a... and <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000155&cycle=A">GM</a> https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000155&a...
- usaphp 11y ago
  More info on this GM matter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_General_Motors_recall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_General_Motors_recall
- jeromeflipo 11y ago
  Seriously? Just in France, diesel emissions kill 42,000 persons every year [0]. In California, they kill at 1,500 to 2,400 people a year [1]. It might be possible that these estimations rely on measurements communicated by the manufacturers (i.e underestimated by 40x)! [0] http://www.lemonde.fr/sante/article/2013/03/02/diesel-42000-morts-prematurees-chaque-annee-en-france_1841726_1651302.html http://www.lemonde.fr/sante/article/2013/03/02/diesel-42000-... [1] http://www.arb.ca.gov/research/diesel/diesel-health.htm http://www.arb.ca.gov/research/diesel/diesel-health.htm
  - happyscrappy 11y ago
    European cities have much worse air pollution than American ones because they went with diesels instead of hybrids in an attempt to be more green and partly because of German auto lobbying.
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  There are 7+ billion people sharing that air. It's interesting that you'd consider 100 lives worth more than a resource we all require to exist, but not really a stance I can consider agreeable.
ArkyBeagle 11y ago
Other than border disputes, when has measurement been a political football before? The nerd in me is happy about this, but the rest of me is kinda ... sad. It's also interesting that there appears to be a tradeoff between NOx and CO2 here. IMO, VW sort of ... prematurely fell on the grenade in a PR way of thinking about it. Actually proving it as fraud would have taken some doing. Admitting it up front does not have clear advantages that I see. If we use the GM keyswitch debacle as a yardstick, there's evidence than being a cheeseball is rewarded. GM managed to constrain the damage to $99M . Not saying anyone did the right thing here, but the adversarial approach has consequences.
- ZeroGravitas 11y ago
  They appear to have been denying it for a year at this point, before they admitted it. So presumably something happened in that period of time that made them calculate that admitting it now was better than continuing to deny it.
  - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
    Uff. Thanks - that makes sense.
  - whatthesmack 11y ago
    I don't recall where I saw it, but there was mention of 2016 VW TDI models not getting road certification until the issue was dealt with. Maybe this was incentive for VW to come clean.
lordnacho 11y ago
How is it possible that the real emission is 40x the allowed limit? Wouldn't you see VW being the only manufacturer under the limit, and everyone else unable to get the car approved? Or alternatively, everyone is cheating? Because you can imagine a world where some firms cheat to get 10-20-30% less than rated, so that they're in line with the industry. But if VW's normal car is 40x worse than advertised, and most cars were close to the correct standard, wouldn't they just hire a guy who knew how to fix their cars? Did VW's internal testing test competitors' cars? Is this going to explode across the industry? Also, this isn't the only kind of test that a car goes through. There's crash tests, MPG tests, and all sorts of things that I wouldn't know about. If you can game an emissions test, you can game the crash test and the MPG test, which are probably both things people care about a fair bit more than emissions.
- ethagknight 11y ago
  The researchers also tested a diesel BMW X5, which passed emissions tests. [0] I would guess that its just more expensive to implement, more steps in the filtration process, larger catalytic converters, etc. [0] http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/23/us-usa-volkswagen-researchers-idUSKCN0RM2D720150923 http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/23/us-usa-volkswagen-...
  - tobltobs 11y ago
    Smaller, cheaper cars are the problem. The bigger cars have a better catalysator system. All those compact diesel cars from Opel, VW, Renault, Peugeot, Nissan will have the same problem.
    - junto 11y ago
      What is crazy is that the vast amount of people who buy these small diesels don't need them. You need long runs to get the particle filter hot enough to burn off. People buying these small diesels are buying them based on the fuel consumption benefits but then only doing short trips like 15 minute school runs. All they are doing is damaging the car.
  - 11y ago
JustSomeNobody 11y ago
Really? 11M vehicles affected and you knew nothing about it and you simply get to resign? I'm growing more and more disappointed in the world we are living in.
gherkin0 11y ago
Does anyone have an technical details on what their "defeat device" was actually doing (like what systems it was disabling)?
- thrownaway2424 11y ago
  It doesn't disable anything, it just uses a different engine management map that runs the engine hotter or leaner (probably both) to get more power and better fuel economy while producing more NOx.
hodder 11y ago
[1] Winterkorn studied metallurgy and metal physics at the University of Stuttgart from 1966 to 1973. From 1973 to 1977 he was a PhD student at the Max-Planck-Institute for Metal Research and Metal Physics, where he received his doctorate in 1977. Winterkorn embarked on his career in 1977, as a specialist assistant in the research division "Process Engineering" at Robert Bosch GmbH.[4] From 1978 to 1981, he headed the refrigerant compressor development group "Substances and Processes" at Robert Bosch and Bosch-Siemens-Hausgeräte GmbH. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Winterkorn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Winterkorn
iamleppert 11y ago
I think someone at the EPA should be held liable for their lousy testing practices. They test cars on a dyno, which is far from real-world testing. They would have easily caught this if they tested cars in the way and same environment that they are driven. I fully expect corporations to try and skirt the law whenever possible, that's why we have institutions like the EPA. Their practices need to be sound and tamper-proof. It's not impossible. It's engineering 101. The head of the EPA should resign in disgrace for letting this situation get this far.
- robwilliams 11y ago
  I mean, they caught it. This is a win for the EPA.
  - setpatchaddress 11y ago
    Well, they didn't catch it, but when it was brought to their attention, they verified it and went after VW. This exposed a gap in their their testing practices, but the overall process certainly worked as it should.
  - iamleppert 11y ago
    They didn't catch it. It was caught by independent researchers. They should be ashamed.
- koof 11y ago
  Their budget keeps getting slashed. Calling the EPA the disgrace, when you have an actually good target for your anger right in front of you, is nonsense.
twblalock 11y ago
I would be very surprised if VW was the only company that did this. I hope this is a catalyst for the EPA to change to real-world emissions testing.
- Kenji 11y ago
  'a catalyst for [...] emissions testing' Hahaha, that is a fantastic pun that lightens up the mood of this comment section.
emodendroket 11y ago
I just can't see how someone sits down and green-lights this decision. It seems like it'd be sure to come out eventually.
- jtriangle 11y ago
  It's market demand for efficient yet sporty cars. They saw a market and made their cars dominate that market. To that end they were wildly successful, so if you set aside any ideological barriers that would speak against creating more pollution than is allowed, it's a fairly logical decision.
  - emodendroket 11y ago
    Yes, but what's not logical is cheating by means that seem so blatant as to be sure to be discovered and potentially vaporizing all the gains you made by cheating in the first place.
    - jtriangle 11y ago
      Weirdly enough, it wasn't the EPA that caught them, so they were doing a good job hiding it from the people that are in charge of finding these things out. So you could say, they would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids!
floor__ 11y ago
As bad as it is to screw the environment.. I am still shocked by all the out rage coming from countries. Its like everyone forgot GM knowingly left faulty parts that were killing people for 10 years. This entire thing seems so political.
- yohui 11y ago
  The difference is that from start to finish VW's aim was deception, while GM "only" failed to fix a problem after it was brought to their attention. Plus, pollution does kill, just not as directly as faulty parts.
- InclinedPlane 11y ago
  Diesel pollution is deadly. And it seems that more people at a higher level are complicit in this scandal than in the GM one. Besides which, what does it matter how bad GM was? This scandal stands on its own. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
  - floor__ 11y ago
    Yeah that is kinda my point. I am upset that GM wasn't held to this standard of accountability or any other car company for that matter. I agree with you that this one is as bad or worse.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
WalterBright 11y ago
The emissions standards are particularly inefficient. They say things like emitting 101ppm is bad and 100 ppm is good. But pollution isn't like that. A much more practical solution is to annually measure the pollution emitted, multiply by the number of miles driven in the last year, and multiply by the tax rate. What this does is: 1. cause the consumer to care about the emissions 2. introduce competition to have better numbers, rather than merely meeting the standard 3. enable higher polluting occasional uses rather than banning them outright
largote 11y ago
What surprises me is that VW thought they wouldn't be caught doing this, it took a while but it seems like sooner or later someone would figure it out.
arbuge 11y ago
There is usually more than one cockroach in the kitchen if you spot one. I wonder how many other aspects of their software they messed with in ways they probably shouldn't have...
paulojreis 11y ago
Is he going to jail?
jschulenklopper 11y ago
Well, you could say that Volkswagen implemented an A/B test on the emission control, but with an unfortunate population segmentation.
jhallenworld 11y ago
I wish this scandal would somehow add pressure to clean up ship and truck pollution. VW is having severe consequences, but their contribution to the problem might not be that significant: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/09/shipping-pollution http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/09/shipping-... http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/california-and-western-states/diesel-trucks-air-pollution.html http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/california-and-western-...

176 points by aaronharnly 11y ago

He was only in his job for about 5 months, but I'm not familiar with his previous work history at VW. Was he in some significant sense responsible for the scandal by way of his prior responsibilities? Or is his resignation, for lack of a better way I can think of to put it, an honor move? Edit: Thanks for the clarifications, all. Although he assumed Ferdinand Piëch's former position as chairman in April 2015, he was VW's CEO since 2007.

pc86 11y ago
He has said publicly that he is not aware of any wrong-doing on his part. I imagine that just about any board would require just about any CEO to resign after something like this, though.
- Scramblejams 11y ago
  When it comes to a relatively new CEO, I'm not so sure about that. GM didn't require Mary Barra's resignation over the ignition switch scandal, for example. (Though admittedly that one was smaller than VW's.) Edit: Winterkorn took over as chairman of the supervisory board of VW in April, but as petewailes pointed out, he's been CEO since 2007, so his resignation makes more sense.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Is it the difference between deliberate/undefendable and simple cost savings? I'm not very familiar with the switch issue.
  - mzs 11y ago
    The cost between GM and VW here is two orders of magnitude, the stock did not drop by a third, and the EPA and CARB were not involved.
- duaneb 11y ago
  I would imagine at the level of management complexity, liability, and brand awareness of VW, which details get reported to whom becomes very important. He may have been technically unaware of cheating, for instance, but may have been aware of a "test optimizer". This is about taking a fall. It's up to the courts (I assume, American, not German) to establish how much he is actually at fault. But the idea that they sold 11M vehicles with hardware cheating the emissions test makes his claim fairly absurd. That kind of decision has got to be made at a high level, even if it's just choosing different budgets without looking closely.
  - msandford 11y ago
    > But the idea that they sold 11M vehicles with hardware cheating the emissions test makes his claim fairly absurd. So a CEO must know every detail about every component of every subsystem of every system in every trim level of every car of every brand that the company sells? If that's really true, we're headed back to the early industrial revolution. Nothing can have more than a few dozen or perhaps hundred parts, and integration of say electronics and mechanical things will be rare, as it'll be the rare CEO who knows enough about both to meet your standard.
    - wpietri 11y ago
      No. But broadly, a CEO is responsible for everything that happens on their watch. And they are specifically responsible for designing their organizations in such a way that the organization behaves responsibly. Ignorance cannot be an excuse for bad management. If we allow that, then executives can set things up so that they always appear ignorant. E.g., imagine a CEO says, "I don't care how you dispose of that toxic waste, just make sure that it's cheap. And of course it has to be safe [wink, wink]. Just don't bother me with details [wink, wink]." Any employee will know the real message.
      - nmrm2 11y ago
        Right, like the "GM nod". The principle that CEOs are responsible for what happens on their watch is major reason cited for their levels of compensation. You don't get it both ways.
petewailes 11y ago
He's been CEO of Volkswagen since '07 IIRC, so whilst he's unlikely responsible, he's in an untenable situation.
- Scramblejams 11y ago
  Ah, thanks, that clears it up. I didn't realize he'd been CEO for that long, I only knew that he took over for Ferdinand Piëch in April of this year.
  - petewailes 11y ago
    No worries!
flixic 11y ago
When stock is down 35%, I'm sure stakeholders want to do something to reverse the direction. This is a highly visible change.
- HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
  So, how many on HN are going to admit to buying up VW stock right now?
  - mrgordon 11y ago
    May it go to zero. If the penalties get high enough, I could see bankruptcy wiping out shareholders.
    - flyinglizard 11y ago
      German government is never-ever going to let this happen. Lower Saxony (IIRC) is a considerable shareholder in VW AG.
  - mirceal 11y ago
    buying VW stock makes perfect sense. you look at what the value of the company is and when you see a large disconnect between the value and the stock price you buy.
korisnik 11y ago
>He was only in his job for about 5 months He has been CEO since 2007, before any of the VW models with defeat devices were introduced. Some of the German analysts and experts who are knowledgeable about the industry itself have said that there is not even the slightest chance that he didn't know this. There's an interesting talk in German here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKILi7PN37A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKILi7PN37A
maxxxxx 11y ago
He gets credit for everything good that comes out of VW even without his knowledge. So he should also take the blame for everything bad that happens.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Agreed. Its the job - being responsible. Nothing unexpected here.
mzs 11y ago
The background in broad brush strokes is that a number of wealthy families are fighting (two of them immensely powerful in particular) as well as a union and state. This is what you see publicly of this private battle now.

korisnik 11y ago

Somewhat relevant, allegations have come out that the German government was aware of VW cheating on emissions tests http://www.independent.ie/world-news/volkswagen-scandal-german-government-accused-of-covering-up-rigged-emissions-data-31552152.html http://www.independent.ie/world-news/volkswagen-scandal-germ...

yc1010 11y ago
I am currently shopping for a car and now need to keep in mind which brands/models are affected by this fiasco as another factor in my shopping. Here in Ireland motor tax is based on CO2 emissions I can see some very very unhappy VW drivers in this country in coming months if their tax suddenly jumps by an order of magnitude due to this avoidance scheme putting these cars into the high emission bands I do wonder how Revenue will handle this, not only some people might find themselves with a more polluting car but a larger and unexpected tax bill will impact peoples pockets directly.
- matt4077 11y ago
  This is mostly about NOX, not CO2.
- organsnyder 11y ago
  The CO2 amount should remain the same—the issue is with other pollutants that cause smog. The only reason that CO2 might go up is if the fix involves increasing fuel consumption. However, you might not even need the fix in Ireland, as many European countries (as I understand it) have laxer smog requirements to begin with. Regardless, though, I wouldn't buy a VW product right now, wherever I lived.
  - tadfisher 11y ago
    Euro standards are backwards; they have stricter CO2 emissions regulations, but are lax on NOx. I'd imagine they don't have a lot of smog events like what happened in California during the 60s and 70s.

hackuser 11y ago

Will the EPA and other automotive regulators test other brands for similar problems? Perhaps this practice is widespread. Testing them seems obvious, but I know little about how regulators work. EDIT: VW isn't the first. From the other story on HN's front page right now [1] [Caterpillar Inc and Cummins Engine Co] agreed to pay $83.4 million in civil penalties after federal officials found evidence that they were selling heavy duty diesel engines equipped with “defeat devices” that allowed the engines to meet EPA emission standards during testing but disabled the emission control system during normal highway driving. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10264894 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10264894 EDIT2: On queue, from the NY Times: "Volkswagen Test Rigging Follows a Long Auto Industry Pattern" http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/24/business/international/volkswagen-test-rigging-follows-a-long-auto-industry-pattern.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/24/business/international/vol...

Shivetya 11y ago
The EPA has already stated that all diesel passenger cars will be retested. I think all cars should go through the same complete testing process and by more than one organizations. The EPA didn't find this issue, a university testing team did
- e40 11y ago
  Does anyone know how the test was detected? I'm thinking they noticed either the revving of the engine without the wheels turning or just one set of wheels were turning. Hopefully the EPA will test in a real situation, by attaching the test equipment to the car and actually driving it. That should foil the cheaters.
  - tzs 11y ago
    From the EPA's description: "The 'switch' senses whether the vehicle is being tested or not based on various inputs including the position of the steering wheel, vehicle speed, the duration of the engine's operation, and barometric pressure. These inputs precisely track the parameters of the federal test procedure used for emission testing for EPA certification purposes." Somewhere I saw a description of the EPA test procedure. It is not just a simple small set of test points. It is a long sequence of operations, calling for specific speeds and durations and rates of change simulating a variety of operating conditions ranging from a wide open freeway to a New York City traffic jam. I believe I read that the order of the various test segments might change from test to test, but each segment's parameters were very strict.

simi_ 11y ago

Edit: Thank you for the several downvotes. I initially wrote a stupid rant based on this [0] about how VW's ex-CEO doesn't speak English, but a quick Youtube search proved that was wrong [1]. Oops! I'll just leave some quick facts that I dug up in the process: * VW just had another scandal that made it to HN recently, regarding hiding security vulnerabilities [2] * VW Group numbers for 2014: €204B of which €12.7B revenue, 583k employees [3] * the board made some weird-ass declarations about the ex-CEO [4] My confidence in VW is shaken to the point that I'll never buy another car from them again (I didn't like how they artificially segment the market by owning Audi/VW/Skoda/etc anyway), but how do other German manufacturers compare? [5] 0: http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/17/9347275/auto-industry-meet-the-apple-effect http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/17/9347275/auto-industry-meet... 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEPJluU09RU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEPJluU09RU 2: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-14/vw-has-spent-two-years-trying-to-hide-a-big-security-flaw http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-14/vw-has-spe... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group 4: http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/23/9383835/volkswagen-board-statement-diesel-scandal http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/23/9383835/volkswagen-board-s... 5: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/volkswagen-may-not-only-car-185400060.html http://finance.yahoo.com/news/volkswagen-may-not-only-car-18...

fein 11y ago
On point #2, this was not only VW. That list even included Ferrari. On point #4, this is pretty normal for any large company playing damage control. GM did the exact same song and dance in 2014. I don't think I've lost any confidence in VW, but we may be looking at different types of cars. I like driving machines that may not be practical, but a hell of an experience to drive. The GTI's have done a great job of this, and I'll probably buy a new one soon. Currently a 2005 MKIV GTI 1.8t. Given that VW tried to cheat emissions to improve performance and mileage, it's exactly something that a person like me actually wants (not the cheating the system, but the driver benefits).
- xgbi 11y ago
  > Given that VW tried to cheat emissions to improve performance and mileage, it's exactly something that a person like me actually wants (not the cheating the system, but the driver benefits). No. They cheated to pass the exam on the cheap, instead of investing in the required R&D to create a motor that gives out the same amount of power while reducing emissions. Given that they already had their engine for the EU, they didn't want to research a new one that conforms to the more drastic emissions of USA for Diesel. That's just a shitty workaround that was there for too long. That it has been in there since 2008 just shows how careless they were. I'm wondering what the investigation in the chain of decision will unveil. You can't hide this for so long without some pretty intense omerta everywhere.

codeshaman 11y ago

As I'm observing this scandal unfold, I find it amusing that all the eyes are on the VW company and how it affects it's finances, it's reputation, etc While the effects on the company are extreme, I think we should also consider the broader and ultimate consequences of this trickery. The fact that those cars pollute a lot more than officially acknowledged. I've read figures like 40x as much. Does that make those 11 million VW cars caught cheating the politically accepted pollution equivalent of 440 million cars ? Another interesting question - if VW was caught doing it, who else is doing it ? And if other companies (and factories, etc) are doing it, what is the purpose of the international pollution treaties ? How does it affect the plans to reduce pollution, given that the numbers that we base our calculations on might be off by factors of 40x ?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
geofft 11y ago
Here's a back-of-the-envelope calculation that the cheating caused 100,000 deaths due to health problems from increased pollution: https://twitter.com/Dymaxion/status/646489476651462657 https://twitter.com/Dymaxion/status/646489476651462657
- refurb 11y ago
  Author's caveat: "And I recognize just how far my envelope-math is from a real model of health outcome risk difference"
- fauigerzigerk 11y ago
  100,000 deaths from 500,000 cars? That's hard to believe.
  - scott_karana 11y ago
    Don't involve "belief", just run the numbers and show your work, unlike the Twitter guy! :-)

DrNuke 11y ago

Problem is they've got the money and the market, CEO can't resign and get away with it, they should pay back all plus a hefty fine. This is much too common nowadays, big corps have no face and are too big to fail, no one is directly accountable and geopolitics are at stake. Hit them hard in the monies, would say, but the risk is fear and a market bubble.

deegles 11y ago

I'm expecting a snarky press release from Tesla any moment now...

TeMPOraL 11y ago
They'll probably start installing NOx emitters in their cars - with defeat devices that will make them active only during tests) - in order to bring Teslas in line with the rest of the industry.

mtgx 11y ago

And if all of that wasn't bad enough to make you dislike VW, they've now hired BP oil spill lawyers to defend them: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/23/volkswagen-hires-kirkland-ellis-to-defend-emissions-cases http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/23/volkswagen-h...

ArkyBeagle 11y ago
Well, yeah.

harryh 11y ago

Two things that are surprising to me about this story: 1) The secret was kept for so long. How many programmers were involved with the relevant code? How many project managers signed off on it? Surely VW does its own emissions testing internally so some of them must have known. How high up in management did this go? It seems like it must have been quite a few. Amazing that none of them got mad and told someone outside the company. 2) I would never have guessed that emissions from a car engine could vary so widely. 20%? Sure. 50%? Sure. But news outlets are reporting that these cars are emitting at least 10x and possibly as much as 40x NOx as they should. This is clearly because of my ignorance of the details of the engineering here, but I was shocked that such a difference could happen.

HNaTTY 11y ago
From what I've read so far, this has to do with heat necessary for the catalytic converter to absorb NOx -- without enough heat, NOx isn't absorbed, so in emissions test mode, they're just running the engine in such a way that more heat is generated to make sure the cat works properly.
- harryh 11y ago
  Interesting! How much heat are we talking about here? When an engine is just running in normal operation it generates a fair amount of heat naturally. I guess that's not enough?
  - ams6110 11y ago
    Diesel engines run with a surplus of air so they only burn the fuel they need to. They don't really generate a lot of heat unless they are under load (relative to gas engines). Just cruising down the highway a diesel will not need much fuel and will run fairly cool.
    - durin42 11y ago
      The owners manual for the VW TDIs actually warns you to not try and preheat the engine by letting it idle in the winter, because it won't work.

jeromeflipo 11y ago

In July, France 2 (the #1 public national television channel in France) released a documentary [0] that showed to which extent the French auto manufacturer PSA lied about NO2 emissions. At 1h19s [1], Pierre Macaudière, head of emission control systems at PSA, admits that the model tested emits 1700 ppm of NO2, after measuring 200 ppm (the legal limit) with their own machines. At 1h17m11s [2], the researchers commissioned by the EU shows the journalist that not one manufacturer respects the legal limits of 200 ppm. He's frightened to tell the journalist that it's all just a widespread fraud. * [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JFprj6v37Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JFprj6v37Q * [1] https://youtu.be/5JFprj6v37Q?t=1h19s https://youtu.be/5JFprj6v37Q?t=1h19s * [2] https://youtu.be/5JFprj6v37Q?t=1h17m11s https://youtu.be/5JFprj6v37Q?t=1h17m11s

differentView 11y ago
If that's true, then there's no way government officials weren't bribed and need to be prosecuted.
- kuschku 11y ago
  Which is kinda expected, considering the government is the second largest shareholder in VW.
- ekianjo 11y ago
  Which calls for decentralized inspection, instead of relying again and again on governments to do the right thing. The only thing they are good at is accepting bribes.
  - anigbrowl 11y ago
    Kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater there, no? I was in and out of publicly-run hospitals as a child, I wouldn't be alive today if not for socialized medicine.
    - duncan_bayne 11y ago

vaadu 11y ago

GM killed more than 100 people with a known defective ignition switch. Volkswagen killed ... the air. Guess which company will get the greater penalty from the US government? BTW, GM spends significantly more on lobbying and campaign contributions to political candidates. Source: OpenSecrets <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000042113&cycle=A">Volkswagen</a> https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000042113&a... and <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000155&cycle=A">GM</a> https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000155&a...

usaphp 11y ago
More info on this GM matter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_General_Motors_recall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_General_Motors_recall
jeromeflipo 11y ago
Seriously? Just in France, diesel emissions kill 42,000 persons every year [0]. In California, they kill at 1,500 to 2,400 people a year [1]. It might be possible that these estimations rely on measurements communicated by the manufacturers (i.e underestimated by 40x)! [0] http://www.lemonde.fr/sante/article/2013/03/02/diesel-42000-morts-prematurees-chaque-annee-en-france_1841726_1651302.html http://www.lemonde.fr/sante/article/2013/03/02/diesel-42000-... [1] http://www.arb.ca.gov/research/diesel/diesel-health.htm http://www.arb.ca.gov/research/diesel/diesel-health.htm
- happyscrappy 11y ago
  European cities have much worse air pollution than American ones because they went with diesels instead of hybrids in an attempt to be more green and partly because of German auto lobbying.
oldmanjay 11y ago
There are 7+ billion people sharing that air. It's interesting that you'd consider 100 lives worth more than a resource we all require to exist, but not really a stance I can consider agreeable.

ArkyBeagle 11y ago

Other than border disputes, when has measurement been a political football before? The nerd in me is happy about this, but the rest of me is kinda ... sad. It's also interesting that there appears to be a tradeoff between NOx and CO2 here. IMO, VW sort of ... prematurely fell on the grenade in a PR way of thinking about it. Actually proving it as fraud would have taken some doing. Admitting it up front does not have clear advantages that I see. If we use the GM keyswitch debacle as a yardstick, there's evidence than being a cheeseball is rewarded. GM managed to constrain the damage to $99M . Not saying anyone did the right thing here, but the adversarial approach has consequences.

ZeroGravitas 11y ago
They appear to have been denying it for a year at this point, before they admitted it. So presumably something happened in that period of time that made them calculate that admitting it now was better than continuing to deny it.
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  Uff. Thanks - that makes sense.
- whatthesmack 11y ago
  I don't recall where I saw it, but there was mention of 2016 VW TDI models not getting road certification until the issue was dealt with. Maybe this was incentive for VW to come clean.

lordnacho 11y ago

How is it possible that the real emission is 40x the allowed limit? Wouldn't you see VW being the only manufacturer under the limit, and everyone else unable to get the car approved? Or alternatively, everyone is cheating? Because you can imagine a world where some firms cheat to get 10-20-30% less than rated, so that they're in line with the industry. But if VW's normal car is 40x worse than advertised, and most cars were close to the correct standard, wouldn't they just hire a guy who knew how to fix their cars? Did VW's internal testing test competitors' cars? Is this going to explode across the industry? Also, this isn't the only kind of test that a car goes through. There's crash tests, MPG tests, and all sorts of things that I wouldn't know about. If you can game an emissions test, you can game the crash test and the MPG test, which are probably both things people care about a fair bit more than emissions.

ethagknight 11y ago
The researchers also tested a diesel BMW X5, which passed emissions tests. [0] I would guess that its just more expensive to implement, more steps in the filtration process, larger catalytic converters, etc. [0] http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/23/us-usa-volkswagen-researchers-idUSKCN0RM2D720150923 http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/23/us-usa-volkswagen-...
- tobltobs 11y ago
  Smaller, cheaper cars are the problem. The bigger cars have a better catalysator system. All those compact diesel cars from Opel, VW, Renault, Peugeot, Nissan will have the same problem.
  - junto 11y ago
    What is crazy is that the vast amount of people who buy these small diesels don't need them. You need long runs to get the particle filter hot enough to burn off. People buying these small diesels are buying them based on the fuel consumption benefits but then only doing short trips like 15 minute school runs. All they are doing is damaging the car.
- 11y ago

JustSomeNobody 11y ago

Really? 11M vehicles affected and you knew nothing about it and you simply get to resign? I'm growing more and more disappointed in the world we are living in.

gherkin0 11y ago

Does anyone have an technical details on what their "defeat device" was actually doing (like what systems it was disabling)?

thrownaway2424 11y ago
It doesn't disable anything, it just uses a different engine management map that runs the engine hotter or leaner (probably both) to get more power and better fuel economy while producing more NOx.

hodder 11y ago

[1] Winterkorn studied metallurgy and metal physics at the University of Stuttgart from 1966 to 1973. From 1973 to 1977 he was a PhD student at the Max-Planck-Institute for Metal Research and Metal Physics, where he received his doctorate in 1977. Winterkorn embarked on his career in 1977, as a specialist assistant in the research division "Process Engineering" at Robert Bosch GmbH.[4] From 1978 to 1981, he headed the refrigerant compressor development group "Substances and Processes" at Robert Bosch and Bosch-Siemens-Hausgeräte GmbH. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Winterkorn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Winterkorn

iamleppert 11y ago

I think someone at the EPA should be held liable for their lousy testing practices. They test cars on a dyno, which is far from real-world testing. They would have easily caught this if they tested cars in the way and same environment that they are driven. I fully expect corporations to try and skirt the law whenever possible, that's why we have institutions like the EPA. Their practices need to be sound and tamper-proof. It's not impossible. It's engineering 101. The head of the EPA should resign in disgrace for letting this situation get this far.

robwilliams 11y ago
I mean, they caught it. This is a win for the EPA.
- setpatchaddress 11y ago
  Well, they didn't catch it, but when it was brought to their attention, they verified it and went after VW. This exposed a gap in their their testing practices, but the overall process certainly worked as it should.
- iamleppert 11y ago
  They didn't catch it. It was caught by independent researchers. They should be ashamed.
koof 11y ago
Their budget keeps getting slashed. Calling the EPA the disgrace, when you have an actually good target for your anger right in front of you, is nonsense.

twblalock 11y ago

I would be very surprised if VW was the only company that did this. I hope this is a catalyst for the EPA to change to real-world emissions testing.

Kenji 11y ago
'a catalyst for [...] emissions testing' Hahaha, that is a fantastic pun that lightens up the mood of this comment section.

emodendroket 11y ago

I just can't see how someone sits down and green-lights this decision. It seems like it'd be sure to come out eventually.

jtriangle 11y ago
It's market demand for efficient yet sporty cars. They saw a market and made their cars dominate that market. To that end they were wildly successful, so if you set aside any ideological barriers that would speak against creating more pollution than is allowed, it's a fairly logical decision.
- emodendroket 11y ago
  Yes, but what's not logical is cheating by means that seem so blatant as to be sure to be discovered and potentially vaporizing all the gains you made by cheating in the first place.
  - jtriangle 11y ago
    Weirdly enough, it wasn't the EPA that caught them, so they were doing a good job hiding it from the people that are in charge of finding these things out. So you could say, they would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids!

floor__ 11y ago

As bad as it is to screw the environment.. I am still shocked by all the out rage coming from countries. Its like everyone forgot GM knowingly left faulty parts that were killing people for 10 years. This entire thing seems so political.

yohui 11y ago
The difference is that from start to finish VW's aim was deception, while GM "only" failed to fix a problem after it was brought to their attention. Plus, pollution does kill, just not as directly as faulty parts.
InclinedPlane 11y ago
Diesel pollution is deadly. And it seems that more people at a higher level are complicit in this scandal than in the GM one. Besides which, what does it matter how bad GM was? This scandal stands on its own. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
- floor__ 11y ago
  Yeah that is kinda my point. I am upset that GM wasn't held to this standard of accountability or any other car company for that matter. I agree with you that this one is as bad or worse.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

WalterBright 11y ago

The emissions standards are particularly inefficient. They say things like emitting 101ppm is bad and 100 ppm is good. But pollution isn't like that. A much more practical solution is to annually measure the pollution emitted, multiply by the number of miles driven in the last year, and multiply by the tax rate. What this does is: 1. cause the consumer to care about the emissions 2. introduce competition to have better numbers, rather than merely meeting the standard 3. enable higher polluting occasional uses rather than banning them outright

largote 11y ago

What surprises me is that VW thought they wouldn't be caught doing this, it took a while but it seems like sooner or later someone would figure it out.

arbuge 11y ago

There is usually more than one cockroach in the kitchen if you spot one. I wonder how many other aspects of their software they messed with in ways they probably shouldn't have...

paulojreis 11y ago

Is he going to jail?

jschulenklopper 11y ago

Well, you could say that Volkswagen implemented an A/B test on the emission control, but with an unfortunate population segmentation.

jhallenworld 11y ago

I wish this scandal would somehow add pressure to clean up ship and truck pollution. VW is having severe consequences, but their contribution to the problem might not be that significant: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/09/shipping-pollution http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/09/shipping-... http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/california-and-western-states/diesel-trucks-air-pollution.html http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/california-and-western-...