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I don't really get the charges here. No manufactorer competes on how environmently clean their cars are, as most consumers don't care beyond fuel efficiency. As

I don't really get the charges here. No manufactorer competes on how environmently clean their cars are, as most consumers don't care beyond fuel efficiency. As such there's no real point for manufacturers to glue on more emissions equipment once government standards are reached; if this upsets the government than make standards stricter. I vaguely remember some collusion accusations over inflated AdBlue prices, though I'm not sure how you're supposed to get a supply/demand thing going on there if the government requires consumers to buy diseal additives.

mikestew 8y ago
Reading the comments first, but haven't gotten to the article, but this part of your comment stands out: though I'm not sure how you're supposed to get a supply/demand thing going on there if the government requires consumers to buy diseal additives I don't understand. I am "required" to buy gasoline to fuel my ICE car, but there appears to be at least some competition in the fuel market. How does this change for the blue stuff I put in my diesel RV? That said, though I've yet to fill the blue tank on the recently-purchased RV, the stuff doesn't appear to be all that expensive to fill a four gallon tank. In light of your comment, should I assume the stuff used to be more expensive and perhaps evidence of collusion?
- tomatotomato37 8y ago
  Doing more research on this it seems like the accusations were the result of a game of news article telephone rather than the actual accusations, though I did find an article[0] that cites a german article[1] that references price control. As for the fuel market, I don't think its exactly a healthy supply/demand system either due to the necessity of car ownership in certain parts of the world; hence why OPEC is able to fuck with the market so much. It's better in that a car can use fuel from multiple sources though, where in the case of these emissions systems it seems you can only use a certain mixture for their cars, who's patent is owned by a german automobile interest group. [0] https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/bmw-vw-daimler-colluded-to-fix-diesel-system-prices-report-alleges/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/bmw-vw-daimler-colluded-t... [1] http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/vw-bmw-daimler-aktienkurse-brechen-nach-kartellverdacht-ein-a-1159117.html http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/vw-bmw-daimler-...

mikestew 8y ago

Reading the comments first, but haven't gotten to the article, but this part of your comment stands out: though I'm not sure how you're supposed to get a supply/demand thing going on there if the government requires consumers to buy diseal additives I don't understand. I am "required" to buy gasoline to fuel my ICE car, but there appears to be at least some competition in the fuel market. How does this change for the blue stuff I put in my diesel RV? That said, though I've yet to fill the blue tank on the recently-purchased RV, the stuff doesn't appear to be all that expensive to fill a four gallon tank. In light of your comment, should I assume the stuff used to be more expensive and perhaps evidence of collusion?

tomatotomato37 8y ago
Doing more research on this it seems like the accusations were the result of a game of news article telephone rather than the actual accusations, though I did find an article[0] that cites a german article[1] that references price control. As for the fuel market, I don't think its exactly a healthy supply/demand system either due to the necessity of car ownership in certain parts of the world; hence why OPEC is able to fuck with the market so much. It's better in that a car can use fuel from multiple sources though, where in the case of these emissions systems it seems you can only use a certain mixture for their cars, who's patent is owned by a german automobile interest group. [0] https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/bmw-vw-daimler-colluded-to-fix-diesel-system-prices-report-alleges/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/bmw-vw-daimler-colluded-t... [1] http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/vw-bmw-daimler-aktienkurse-brechen-nach-kartellverdacht-ein-a-1159117.html http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/vw-bmw-daimler-...