7 ms·

> Many of your top executives will go to jail. So naiive. I would be very very surprised if anyone goes to jail over this. VW is going to take a huge hit but

> Many of your top executives will go to jail. So naiive. I would be very very surprised if anyone goes to jail over this. VW is going to take a huge hit but doomed? Puhleeze... companies have survived worse.

mschuster91 11y ago
This case could drag the entire automobile industry except Tesla down. It's been widely suspected (but, likely due to corruption, ignored) that emissions and fuel consumption tests are outright manipulated. Now the regulators have to act in face of the public outrage, and I'm going all in that we're going to have some pretty nasty surprises being uncovered.
- return0 11y ago
  where did you see the public outrage?
- lispm 11y ago
  > It's been widely suspected (but, likely due to corruption, ignored) that emissions and fuel consumption tests are outright manipulated. This is widely discussed here in Germany for some years now, but the government chose not to act. A form of corruption and a fear of loss of jobs -> voters. When it comes to electric vehicles, I'm not so sure they make that much more sense environmentally: lot's of energy and materials used during production, new large scale infrastructure needed, electricity mostly produced by coal and nuclear power plants, exotic materials used for the battery, etc etc. Here in Germany the number of electric cars is tiny. We are seeing lots of electric bicycles and public transport is starting to invest in electric busses on a larger scale. What could have quicker some positive environmental impact and would be relatively simple, would be to have more cars use natural gas, since a lot of cars could be using it.
  - the8472 11y ago
    > lot's of energy and materials used during production regular cars also cost energy to produce. so unless there is a huge discrepancy it still means a relative reduction in emissions when compared to gas-guzzling ones > electricity mostly produced by coal and nuclear power plants that is a separate problem which is also supposed to get tackled over time. just because B hasn't been completely solved yet doesn't mean we can't start working on A which will depend on B to realize its full potential. Not to mention that autonomous vehicles might very well become a third prong attacking the problem by making electric, autonomous fleets not owned by individuals a possible scenario. Since cars wouldn't have to be individually-owned this might also drive down the overall fleet size and thus reduce the overall energy invested in vehicle production.
aioprisan 11y ago
Are you saying that there's been clear industrial fraud on this scale before and a company survived this? Care to cite some examples?
- hebdo 11y ago
  2008 financial crisis - collateralized debt obligations. Incomparably bigger.
  - aioprisan 11y ago
    That's overly simplistic. CDOs aren't inherently bad by themselves, and there are multiple types with a variety of underlying assets. It was the failure of the rating agencies to assess risk appropriately that made it into a crisis. There's been no proof of collusion among the banks to create a crisis, no specific people that criminal charges could be brought against, unlike in the case of VW.
    - hebdo 11y ago
      By saying CDOs I meant their ratings. And while, as always, nothing can be proven on Wall Street, you won't tell me that giving mortgages to unemployed people and then selling it as CDOs (or even CDOs squared!) is good.
      - aioprisan 11y ago
        I made no claims to good or bad, of course the crash wasn't good, but the chain of proof isn't there for the financial crisis in the same way. I'm simply talking about provable fraud that needed to take place up the chain at VW, which, when you're talking about an engineered machine with clear trails of who's done what and multiple decision points over iterations of industrial components, it's much easier to follow to the source and prosecute accordingly.
- infinotize 11y ago
  GM's deliberate cover up of of faulty ignition modules which resulted in dozens of deaths. (The mistake wasn't deliberate, but the systematic sweeping under the rug and ignoring the known issue definitely was) That and banks get away with worse all the time, even ignoring 2008 which is hard to pin on a single actor. You have LIBOR scandals, HSBC violating sanctions with Iran - clear deliberate legal violations that result in fines and maybe some new regs but that's it. If you extend the criteria into gross negligence there are tons of horrible examples - BP spilling a gazillion barrels of crude into the gulf. Executives are forced to pull the golden ripcord a little early. The companies keep ticking.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Maarten88 11y ago
This is written from a US centric viewpoint by someone who sees VW as a niche brand for environmentally aware people. But we are talking about the largest car manufacturer in the world. In Europe VW is a mainstream car, people buy them because they are economical and well built. I think most people in EU see VW less as an especially "Green" brand so the reputation damage in their home markets might be less severe. And WV reacted like Lance Armstrong caught with doping: like cycling I'm assuming all the other manufacturers are doing the same. Maybe they were less aggressive or maybe they were just were not as successful with it, therefore they were not caught, yet.
- DanBC 11y ago
  The mainstream nature of diesel in EU makes the problem worse; dirty diesel kills many people each year (about 9,000 in London alone) so VW have killed (and contributed to the deaths of) many people over the years this fraud has happened. This has cost the various health services billions of Euro.
  - jbapple 11y ago
    > dirty diesel kills many people each year (about 9,000 in London alone) Here is a paper I found related to that claim: "Understanding the Health Impacts of Air Pollution in London" https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/HIAinLondon_KingsReport_14072015_final_0.pdf https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/HIAinLondon_Ki...
- davidiach 11y ago
  The author is actually from Switzerland, see http://blog.salathe.com/europes-technological-irrelevance-time-to-panic http://blog.salathe.com/europes-technological-irrelevance-ti...
gutnor 11y ago
Also, the main assumption is that the consumer have been duped. Most of the people that I know that buy VW car ( which is a lot of them considering it is one of the most popular brand where I come from ) do it for reliability, consumption, price. i.e. running cost of the vehicule. The rest is also interested by performance, look, ... Pollution is only important because tax level of the car is directly related to the emission of the car. IMO that is highly unlikely that government will take action against car owner like retroactive taxation, so as far as customers are concerned, nothing has changed. As an illustration, I remember as a kid when VW turbo diesel became really performant. Since Diesel is much cheaper, diesel car became really popular. People were claiming that they did it for the environment as at the time, diesel was thought to be cleaner. A decade or more later, diesel was recognised as being more polluting but that did not change at all the diesel use in the country at all. ( Let's be realistic for a moment - Prius type car are popular but they would have stormed the market if pollution was a top concern for people. Instead, we got SUV taking the European market by storm - SUV !!! ) So yeah that will be rough time for VW, but the analysis in the document does not seem realistic at all.
- aioprisan 11y ago
  > Also, the main assumption is that the consumer have been duped. That main assumption is correct. When your car resale value tanks and you'll have to sell your car at a massive loss, you've been duped. When you've paid a massive premium for a more rapidly depreciating asset due to willfully deceptive marketing, you've been duped. When you can't re-register your car because it doesn't comply with emission standards in your state and you lose your economic livelihood, you've been duped.
  - gutnor 11y ago
    To have a massive loss in resale value, it would need to affect the car reliability. Government action against car owners is unlikely for the very reason you list (i.e. it would only affect primarily the victim), and the yearly emission checks your car need to pass are way less restrictive than for new cars. I see what you are saying and agree that it is a possible scenario. But it does not match to the reality around me or even the trends like european fastest growing car segment being SUV and Crossovers. Pollution on its own merit and not simply as a tax artefact is just not something that people look for and the article fails to give any sort of metric to prove I'm wrong.

mschuster91 11y ago

This case could drag the entire automobile industry except Tesla down. It's been widely suspected (but, likely due to corruption, ignored) that emissions and fuel consumption tests are outright manipulated. Now the regulators have to act in face of the public outrage, and I'm going all in that we're going to have some pretty nasty surprises being uncovered.

return0 11y ago
where did you see the public outrage?
lispm 11y ago
> It's been widely suspected (but, likely due to corruption, ignored) that emissions and fuel consumption tests are outright manipulated. This is widely discussed here in Germany for some years now, but the government chose not to act. A form of corruption and a fear of loss of jobs -> voters. When it comes to electric vehicles, I'm not so sure they make that much more sense environmentally: lot's of energy and materials used during production, new large scale infrastructure needed, electricity mostly produced by coal and nuclear power plants, exotic materials used for the battery, etc etc. Here in Germany the number of electric cars is tiny. We are seeing lots of electric bicycles and public transport is starting to invest in electric busses on a larger scale. What could have quicker some positive environmental impact and would be relatively simple, would be to have more cars use natural gas, since a lot of cars could be using it.
- the8472 11y ago
  > lot's of energy and materials used during production regular cars also cost energy to produce. so unless there is a huge discrepancy it still means a relative reduction in emissions when compared to gas-guzzling ones > electricity mostly produced by coal and nuclear power plants that is a separate problem which is also supposed to get tackled over time. just because B hasn't been completely solved yet doesn't mean we can't start working on A which will depend on B to realize its full potential. Not to mention that autonomous vehicles might very well become a third prong attacking the problem by making electric, autonomous fleets not owned by individuals a possible scenario. Since cars wouldn't have to be individually-owned this might also drive down the overall fleet size and thus reduce the overall energy invested in vehicle production.

aioprisan 11y ago

Are you saying that there's been clear industrial fraud on this scale before and a company survived this? Care to cite some examples?

hebdo 11y ago
2008 financial crisis - collateralized debt obligations. Incomparably bigger.
- aioprisan 11y ago
  That's overly simplistic. CDOs aren't inherently bad by themselves, and there are multiple types with a variety of underlying assets. It was the failure of the rating agencies to assess risk appropriately that made it into a crisis. There's been no proof of collusion among the banks to create a crisis, no specific people that criminal charges could be brought against, unlike in the case of VW.
  - hebdo 11y ago
    By saying CDOs I meant their ratings. And while, as always, nothing can be proven on Wall Street, you won't tell me that giving mortgages to unemployed people and then selling it as CDOs (or even CDOs squared!) is good.
    - aioprisan 11y ago
      I made no claims to good or bad, of course the crash wasn't good, but the chain of proof isn't there for the financial crisis in the same way. I'm simply talking about provable fraud that needed to take place up the chain at VW, which, when you're talking about an engineered machine with clear trails of who's done what and multiple decision points over iterations of industrial components, it's much easier to follow to the source and prosecute accordingly.
infinotize 11y ago
GM's deliberate cover up of of faulty ignition modules which resulted in dozens of deaths. (The mistake wasn't deliberate, but the systematic sweeping under the rug and ignoring the known issue definitely was) That and banks get away with worse all the time, even ignoring 2008 which is hard to pin on a single actor. You have LIBOR scandals, HSBC violating sanctions with Iran - clear deliberate legal violations that result in fines and maybe some new regs but that's it. If you extend the criteria into gross negligence there are tons of horrible examples - BP spilling a gazillion barrels of crude into the gulf. Executives are forced to pull the golden ripcord a little early. The companies keep ticking.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Maarten88 11y ago

This is written from a US centric viewpoint by someone who sees VW as a niche brand for environmentally aware people. But we are talking about the largest car manufacturer in the world. In Europe VW is a mainstream car, people buy them because they are economical and well built. I think most people in EU see VW less as an especially "Green" brand so the reputation damage in their home markets might be less severe. And WV reacted like Lance Armstrong caught with doping: like cycling I'm assuming all the other manufacturers are doing the same. Maybe they were less aggressive or maybe they were just were not as successful with it, therefore they were not caught, yet.

DanBC 11y ago
The mainstream nature of diesel in EU makes the problem worse; dirty diesel kills many people each year (about 9,000 in London alone) so VW have killed (and contributed to the deaths of) many people over the years this fraud has happened. This has cost the various health services billions of Euro.
- jbapple 11y ago
  > dirty diesel kills many people each year (about 9,000 in London alone) Here is a paper I found related to that claim: "Understanding the Health Impacts of Air Pollution in London" https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/HIAinLondon_KingsReport_14072015_final_0.pdf https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/HIAinLondon_Ki...
davidiach 11y ago
The author is actually from Switzerland, see http://blog.salathe.com/europes-technological-irrelevance-time-to-panic http://blog.salathe.com/europes-technological-irrelevance-ti...

gutnor 11y ago

Also, the main assumption is that the consumer have been duped. Most of the people that I know that buy VW car ( which is a lot of them considering it is one of the most popular brand where I come from ) do it for reliability, consumption, price. i.e. running cost of the vehicule. The rest is also interested by performance, look, ... Pollution is only important because tax level of the car is directly related to the emission of the car. IMO that is highly unlikely that government will take action against car owner like retroactive taxation, so as far as customers are concerned, nothing has changed. As an illustration, I remember as a kid when VW turbo diesel became really performant. Since Diesel is much cheaper, diesel car became really popular. People were claiming that they did it for the environment as at the time, diesel was thought to be cleaner. A decade or more later, diesel was recognised as being more polluting but that did not change at all the diesel use in the country at all. ( Let's be realistic for a moment - Prius type car are popular but they would have stormed the market if pollution was a top concern for people. Instead, we got SUV taking the European market by storm - SUV !!! ) So yeah that will be rough time for VW, but the analysis in the document does not seem realistic at all.

aioprisan 11y ago
> Also, the main assumption is that the consumer have been duped. That main assumption is correct. When your car resale value tanks and you'll have to sell your car at a massive loss, you've been duped. When you've paid a massive premium for a more rapidly depreciating asset due to willfully deceptive marketing, you've been duped. When you can't re-register your car because it doesn't comply with emission standards in your state and you lose your economic livelihood, you've been duped.
- gutnor 11y ago
  To have a massive loss in resale value, it would need to affect the car reliability. Government action against car owners is unlikely for the very reason you list (i.e. it would only affect primarily the victim), and the yearly emission checks your car need to pass are way less restrictive than for new cars. I see what you are saying and agree that it is a possible scenario. But it does not match to the reality around me or even the trends like european fastest growing car segment being SUV and Crossovers. Pollution on its own merit and not simply as a tax artefact is just not something that people look for and the article fails to give any sort of metric to prove I'm wrong.