VW US recall over emissions test cheating
 

I wouldn't have thought an organisation the size of VW would consider such a thing.
http://mashable.com/2015/09/18/volks.../#9OlMT2twwZkp
http://www.informationweek.com/gover...d/d-id/1322257

Why? The EPA and Carb are literally terrorists. VW understands we hate them all and wish they would mind their own business. It is no surprise VW is one of the very few manufacturers that sells diesels in the US, our idiotic emissions are created to make them almost impossible to make legal, and VW has a huge stake is selling diesel vehicles.

Read that news last night. Pretty smart stuff also kind of simple fix. There seems to be some lots of politics behind this, no surprise.

Yup, epa and carb don't want diesels in US passenger cars. No actual real reason, but then none of what they do has a real reason besides," I want it that way."

Seriously all they would need to do is adopt European gas standards and that would make 80% of the difference. Our emissions standards make zero sense for this country. Pretty sure Europe is a hell of a lot more packed in, yet they have standards that are actually slightly less strict than ours, but they have much better quality diesel gas.

The EPA and carb pretend passenger automobile pollution actually matters and hope you completely ignore the changes in technology for factories especially, but also everything else that pollutes. Not to mention they ignore large trucks, busses, etc, things that actually pollute much more than passenger cars.

I hope VW can go on the offensive and we can get the EPA and carb closed down. Both are doing immeasurable harm to our country because the people involved love having power over others even though they have absolutely no idea what they are doing.

:bellyroll:

I mean you're not totally wrong but I have to ask if you've ever experienced a smog choked city? I've been lucky to have not been born when LA air was literally unbreathable, I've heard stories where it literally hurt to be outside a few decades ago. And it's still really bad imo, there are strong statistics for asthma cases in LA that are likely smog related.

They are definitely needed and there are still improvements to be made.

I lived in la when it was brown haze days. Smog standards didn't help. What did help was the cash for clunkers program. Everyone got rid of their 60's and 70's pos cars for newer cars.
I remember my dad got rid of his old pos Buick station wagon for a nice '83 Volvo wagon.

My guess is that the team of engineers responsible for this made the decision autonomously. It's unlikely that the execs had any idea, until now of course.

Not true and really not true.
The reductions for factories get heavier every year and the list of outright banned materials are making it harder and harder to make good yet cost effective parts. Our paint is a good example of this since the government is reducing the permitted VOCs faster that the tech is being developed to replace them. Industry is truly struggling to meet the new requirements and this is why many things are being made off shore where the laws are less stringent.


As far as heavy vehicles go, the EPA started rolling out graduated requirements starting back in 2006. The final stage of this plan was in 2011 and the required emissions were at, or below, those required for passenger cars in most jurisdictions. This drove the price of trucks up by 10 to 15% for the 2011 model year but created a huge run (we couldn't keep up with parts demand) for the 2010s. I know it doesn't appear as such when you see that black smoke rolling out of a truck exhaust but believe it or not (I am sure many won't believe it) the actual emissions in that smoke are reduced as much as 60% of the pre 2006 ones.


Ps - The above is not theory or something I read about on the internet but direct knowledge from 27 years in EH&S for the auto parts manufacturing game with 9 of those spent in the heavy vehicle parts manufacturing realm.

Smog is not automobile related. cities also have tons of industry, power plants, etc throwing up tons and tons of pollution. A few factories will spew more pollution into the air then tens of thousands of automobiles. You should see the difference between what factories can do now from what they use to be able to do. And if smog was totally vehicle related why do semi trucks and buses have zero standards? Both pollute a ton more than vehicles and they are totally unregulated.

Yes, the reductions for factories get heavier and heavier. That is what really reduces smog and pollution. That is what I am saying. They are too extreme frankly, but I believe that is part of the plan. The people in charge don't want any of this type of stuff in this country, they somehow think we can survive with zero industry. Some regulation is this area is necessary because they are 100% responsible for pollution and terrible air quality in large cities.

What type of heavy vehicles are you talking about? Semi's and buses? Or something else? I'll be honest and say it is moronic to put any smog restrictions on semi's since they are literally the backbone of the US economy, and making the cost of running them more expensive will make everything in the US more expensive, as we are all seeing in everything we buy since gas has been made more expensive.

I believe the only reason to put such stringent standards on passenger automobiles is to drive the costs up. Same thing for the idiot requirements for all the electronic nannies and other governmental regulations. Some regulations should exist for the safety of the consumer, but a majority of regulations in the USA are 100% unnecessary and serve to wreck our economy. For some reason people totally ignore the manufacturers costs to meet regulations when they talk about how expensive automobiles have become.

Semis, buses, stake trucks, etc are all heavy vehicles. And yes the cost of purchasing, maintaining and running them went way up. Put many smaller companies right out of business.
No the regulations are not there to drive costs up. They are truly intended to help the environment which they actually do. It may not seem like it since the change is subtle and gradual but things are indeed better then even 30-40 years ago. I have no clue how old you are but if you experienced the stinking, choking horror of being stuck in traffic back in the early 70s you would understand what those regulations have done. Passenger cars may not be the main cause of issues but they are certainly in the top 5.

Didn't know that. Yes, the air quality is better. At some point however the price you pay is way too much. At this point a modern car pollutes less at WOT than 60's eras cars did when they were just sitting still turned off.

You are also arguing that companies would not simply regulate themselves. We know government bureaucrats do not work for car manufacturers. As we saw with volvo a few years ago, companies will choose to make cars that the market wants without government interference.

The simple cost of obeying the regulations in the US is why we don't get a ton of vehicles sold in Europe and Japan, which both also have regulations. Maybe all these countries should get together and come up with one set of standards to keep costs as low as possible.

So while some regulation is necessary, we are way past that point and have been for a while. I do believe the people running things right now hate the fact that people can jump in car and go anywhere in the country they want to. They'd prefer us all living in slums with no hope of going anywhere. Too many regulations hurts everyone. Like you mention with idiotic paint regulations. They don't do that for pollution, they do it because they want to stress the industry beyond the breaking point and have everyone go out of business. Far too many government bureaucrats love that they can pick and choose who wins and loses by passing a few regulations. Far too many do it after getting a nice check from certain companies.

The sad part is that the companies would not regulate themselves. Even now there are floods of exception requests and fines for non compliance of regs that have been in place for 10 years or more. The companies want that penny a part profit and if doing something until they get caught gets it for them they will do it.
Over the last 5 years the international community is starting to band together more and more to make regulations global. The VOCs I mentioned before is a great example of that since it is a global standard. This will eventually help the North American industries and the off shore places start to increase in costs. The industry in China and Mexico are no longer the mom and pop sweatshop manufacturing that people picture but real live factories with EH&S standards that meet or even exceed the US.

Truth in Engineering.

@why - I am guessing that you are a "climate denier"...

One of the big reasons for increasing the emissions requirements is to force the auto manufacturers to switch to zero emissions vehicles.
The Repubs said just a few years ago that it would never work and it would just drive vehicle costs through the roof and put auto manufacturers out of business.

As yo can see the opposite is true. The auto manufacturers have hybrids, full electrics, and even hydrogen fuel cell cars coming to market right now.
Full economy is higher than ever (another thing that the skeptics said was impossible).
So long story - it IS doable, and the sky is not falling.
Also look at the tech STILL coming out of F1! - We are nowhere NEAR where the technology can take us yet.

No (I know what you re thinking) switching the vehicles to zero emissions STILL makes the power plants responsible for generating that power and they will just pollute more. Well.... IF the power plants are the only thigs polluting then it is much easier to fix the problem (of emissions) if you now have to do it to ONE power plant instead of 10,000 vehicles.
So it IS working and it IS painful, but the alternative (to pretend there is NOT a problem) is NOT an option.

For the climate deniers they must not understand this:
1- IF anthropogenic global warmig is real and we do nothing, we stand the risk of causing global damage on a scale that we have not seen in millions of years.

2 - IF AGW is not real and we go through the effort to make vehicles and power plants less polluting, then ALL WE ARE OUT is DOLLARS and we walk away with some very important new technology.

So if we do the cost benefit analysis: If we are wrong about AGW and upgrade the technology, we only lose dollars.
If we are right about AGW the technology update might just save millions of lives at the cost of ONLY dollars.

For those religious types who use Pascal's wager to (be forced to) believe in God, then the same concept applies here to AGW.

I have the same feeling about technology to stop the next Extinction level event of a huge asteroid strike. If we bury our heads in the sand an "hope" one doesnt hit us we are fools.
IF we spend the dollars to defend against such a thing and it never becomes a threat then what have we actually lost? nothing (except dollars), and we would have some bad ass technology to show for it.

Back on topic: I own a 2013 VW Passat TDI.
Needless to say my wife and I ARE PISSED!

I fully expect a class action lawsuit that just might cause the demise of VW.
I expect VW to be forced to offer to buy back every single one of the cars affected by this scandal AND pay restitution to every owner.
Many of the people bought these cars because they wanted to HELP the environmental problem and were willing to pay MORE for that.
Now we learn that: Not only are we NOT helping, but the cars are spewing 10 to 40 times more pollutants than allowed?!?!
That is not only false advertising of the worst kind, but it is a HUGE SLAP IN THE FACE.

SO I hope that the US Govt hits them with the ENTIRE 18 BILLION dollar fine AND force them to replace AT NO COST every single diesel car affected.
My wife wants to drive the Passat through the front window of the VW dealership like the little lady in the old discount tire commercial.

We know some companies will regulate themselves because that is what has happened. Volvo specifically is a great example when they were advertising their cars were cleaner than they needed to be. Yes there will always be some companies that will not and that is where reasonable regulations come in.

International regulation standards could be a good thing, as long as they are reasonable. Current US standards are not reasonable.

Your viewpoints are flat out wrong. Every piece of evidence that has ever been used to say man made global warming exists has been proven to be 100% fabricated. More importantly, the climate is not the same thing as the local environment. On a daily basis we are finding more and more of these temperature gauges scientists use are located right by a/c vents or in the middle of hundreds of square feet of pavement. Yup I am sure those readings are accurate...

Um were you around when "scientists" were claiming we were entering an ice age in the 70's. Funny how that never happened.

Um, almost every hybrid and literally every single electric vehicle on the market is being sold below cost right now. It took toyota nearly twenty years to make a penny off of their hybrid costs. Automotive manufacturing costs have skyrocketed, or have you not visited a dealership any time recently? When I bought my Yaris in 2006 the base price was $9999, now it is over $17k. That's absurd. And acting like most republicans are not as left wing as you are is also absurd.

You are jumbling ideas and issues. You really need to do your own research. There are areas in the US where driving a full size truck actually pollutes less than driving a hybrid. There are areas where the opposite is true. It all depends on where the electricity comes from. Also batteries for automobiles are massive polluters. It is not a coincidence Tesla put the factory they are going to build in the middle of nowhere. You cannot make a wasteland any worse than it already is. Go search google for how horrific the environment is around the Toyota battery plant in Canada.

Fuel economy is not higher than ever. 80's Civics and Geo Metros were easily getting well over 50 mpg decades ago. In fact government regulations are killing gas mileage and keeping cars that get sensational gas mileage like great new diesels out of the USA.

You are also assuming the current power infrastructure is even capable of handling a hybrid in every driveway. It is not even close to being able to do that. There are rolling brownouts and blackouts every summer in the USA, and the west coast has severe electric shortages all the time. The only way we could even have a shot at having the capacity to do so would be making brand new nuclear plants in every single state. Probably a few of them in each state. Of course lefties think that is the worst thing in the world even when countries like France have been running on 80% nuclear for decades with zero issues.

Automobiles are not responsible for smog issues, big industry is. And that's been pretty much taken care of since there are so many regulations most industries simply leave the country.

1. You are jumbling terms and ideas. Please do more research, the climate of this planet has never been static. We are still coming out of a little ice age, as accurately portrayed in the famous painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware river that is choked with ice. That same river today even on the coldest days is not choked with any ice whatsoever. Pretty sure there were zero automobiles in the late 1700's. Also if we are causing global warming why has every single other body orbiting our sun warmed by the exact same amount the earth has? Pretty sure there are no automobiles or industry on those planets.

2. If we even try to do 10% of what big government loving conspirators suggest we are not only out dollars we destroy the economy of the planet for generations to come. Even the most aggressive of the lefts plans might lower the world temperature a degree or two over 100 years at the costs of hundreds of trillions of dollars or probably much much more. That is simply not worth it. Why do you think this specific climate is the best one? Do you have any evidence that a few degrees warmer is not actually a better thing for all involved? Do you understand the single largest contributor to the earth's environment is water vapor? Carbon dioxide has a negligible effect next to that, and NOx has zero effect.

To attack religious people while living in a country that owes its entire existence on Judeo-Christian values is repugnant in every way possible. Those values are literally the basis for the entire western way of life. Sad you don't know the first person to ever mention that government and religion should not be intertwined was Jesus Himself.

How do you know the government is not researching asteroid killing tech? They tell us nothing. Do you know they have a semi secret space program that pretty much is an open secret? They stopped NASA from doing manned missions because they wanted to classify everything. Top secret and military tech is at a minimum 50 years ahead of anything we see, maybe more. Stuff they were researching in the 60's if not earlier are what we are seeing now in the products we can buy on the shelf.

If you honestly bought a diesel vehicle to “help the environment” um... wow. Please do your own research.

By the way, that suppose 10 – 40% number is pretty much bs. I am sure VW's diesels would meet EU regulations if we had decent diesel fuel. You should be getting pissed at your local representatives for not forcing our diesel gas to meet European standards. We'd get a ton more varied and better diesel vehicles if they did that, and our environment would be a hell of a lot healthier. While you are screaming at them you should tell them we should adopt European emissions and crash standards as well. It would save everyone billions and allow us to all get better vehicles.

BTW, If the feds even hint at trying to give VW a fine like that we would be looking at a world war at the worst, at the very least VW would give the US government the finger and simply totally withdraw from the US, leaving every VW owner screwed. So yea, keep supporting that gigantic evil government until you are left with a car you cannot sell and are forced to keep paying for.

Seriously the fix is amazingly easy, all the tech is already in the vehicles. I bet it will make your cost of ownership at least triple for it to be running full time though.

@why?

WOW quite the diatribe?

Telling ME to do my research about climate OR spacecraft technology? Funny.

Do YOU have a badge that says "Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics"?
Or 20 years in Aerospace engineering building spacecraft?
I am currently building your very next generation of Weather Satellite for you - youre welcome.

I am usually the one who has to remind people that "Antarctica used to be a Rain Forest".
The evidence IS pointing to AGW as being a fact.
Again, if we are wrong and do nothing we might just all die.
If we TRY to do something and turn out to have been wrong IT WAS ONLY DOLLARS that were wasted.
I dont need thousands of words to make that point.

And I laughed out loud! You REALLY think that if we hit VW with an 18 Billion dollar fine, that Germany would declare war? I just blew Monster out of my nose!

1/ Couching your words in hyperbole does your argument no favours.
2/ This statement alone leads me to believe you have no understanding of scientific methodology.

Runaway greenhouse effect...a la the planet Venus.

People should really look it up.

Global Warming is real...we should try to curtail it...but it is a very tough line to toe.

I am a conservative voter...who gets annoyed when people deny global warming...it is not theory...it is proven scientific fact now. My "team" (conservatives) who deny global warming make me facepalm...

Even if you assume that AGW wasn't accelerated by human influences, the adverse effects of pollution to wildlife as well as human health are more than obvious, and there's nothing wrong with trying to keep down pollution.

Umm... do you know what "peer-reviewed" means? By "scientist", we don't mean your uncle who used to live in your parent's basement who thinks the moon landing was a hoax.

He criticized the idea of Pascal's Wager and not religious believers in general, which you clearly do not seem to know what it is. Either way, it seems like you are religious, but you're bat-shit insane if you actually think it's a "basis for the entire western way of life."

Frankly, I can't believe someone would allow himself to be spoon-fed this much bullshit when you can find the truth with a simple Google search....

Climate change denial is a scary thing bro.

What VW did was pretty scary too. We have laws, corporations need to abide by them or GTFO. Seems simple enough to me.

Literally!

You're a literary terrorist. Zing!

Go vote for Trump. Go home, you're drunk.

I even agree with stugray over you. That's saying something.

Oh yeah, and CALLED IT!

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...6&postcount=32

[/pedant]
Sorry, I take issue with this statement as well.
Yes, there is evidence to support human induced climate change but I am not sure it is "proven" beyond all doubt. My use of the word "doubt" here is used within science theory procedure, not as in "doubtful people".
My understanding is that a scientific idea runs the gamut from hypothesis to theory to law (with very few laws being established).
As far as human induced climate change goes I believe scientists who favour the theory will state that there is an x percentage that humans have caused climate change. That is, even those scientists who support anthropogenic climate change still leave a margin of error that allows for non anthropogenic warming. It's just that at the present time the error is something like 10%.
[/pedant]

Suppose you are right due to there not being a true way to have a "control" for this.

But I do get tired of people doing the "we need more research before we decide this is true...oh and until...business as usual".

This video kinda explains what I am talking about really well.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkR3TI6xyzU"]Bill Nye to Climate Change Deniers: You Can’t Ignore Facts Forever - YouTube[/ame]

Believe it or not (see the irony?) I have no issue with religion per se but like all institutions religions' values are expressed through people. Christianity's values have changed with the times along with people's values. Stoning was acceptable under the right circumstances, judgements carried out during the Inquistion, witch hunts, the Crusades.To use the expression "Judeo-Christian values" is somewhat pointless given how those those values have changed throughout history.

Scientific laws are made to be broken. This is why they call it quantum theory, not quantum law. Science is a method, not a set of agreed upon theories. If you follow the method, you're a scientist. Of course bias slips in constantly. People lie and fudge all the time, especially when paid by oil companies.

My opinion is that it is too late to change the damage that climate change will cause. That is, I think we are past the tipping point at which we will enter increasing temperatures for the foreseeable future. The tundra permafrost has already starting melting and once that methane is released we are stuffed.

I hope you are wrong...but I don't think you are.

Though, as humans our timeline is so short vs planetary timelines.

Lets say this process takes 1000 years...

To the Earth, that 1000 years is the blink of an eye. To humans, it would represent roughly 5 times as long as the United States has been a country.

Heck, say this process takes a million years...still a short period of time for Earth, but unimaginable for us.

Also back to the 1000 years comment...we just hope "some really smart guy will figure something out by then" yet we invest very little capital funds into our schools in hopes of developing these young future engineers.

[pedant]
Sorry, your statement doesn't make sense. You are stating two different things.
"Scientific laws are made to be broken." A then B
"This is why they call it quantum theory, not quantum law." B then C
[/pedant]

:thanks:
This seems the worthwhile track. We may not be able to stop catastrophic climate events from happening (like the thawing of the permafrost), but we can invest to educate those that someday might with future technologies.

Who knows, maybe in 2050 one of our newly lifetime STEM educated grandchildren will invent an air scrubber that traps, extracts and transforms excessive methane and CO2 from the air and turn it into something benign.

"Or" maybe a companies like VW, Koch Industries, and EXXON/Mobil will conclude that it's simply cheaper to go on a decade long media blitz to convince people that climate change is a bunch of hooey and the free market regulates itself in a safe and responsible way. While public agencies like CARB and the EPA are freedom terrorists looking to inact Sharia law on our Judeo-Christian (Native American killing) patriots. Ok, that's not an "Or", those kinds of PR campaigns are pretty much guaranteed to play throughout the fight to not pollute the shit out of our tiny blue marble island in space. Those with half a brain will just fight back harder. Could anything be more important? Well maybe, but that's scientific thinking that leaves the door open for it.

:cheers:

Yeah on that note...people who claim that this did not or does not or will not happen...

Look up how leaded gasoline was used and justified...

Here's a TL;DR for this thread:

VW cheats on emissions tests!

Well f**k you!

F**k you too bud!

You're not a scientist!

Neither are you!

There is a big misunderstanding about this topic and you hit it right there.


There is absolutely no question about global warming.
It is widely accepted (except among the republicans) among scientists.


The question is : IS the global warming caused by humans (i.e. Anthropogenic global warming).


There are many forcing functions, the sun is the biggest one.
Are we positive that the sun hasn't started putting out just 0.01% more heat in the last 50 years?
Hard to be sure because we have only had spacecraft for about that long monitoring it.
And it is hard to compare datasets because the instruments that record that data are not all the same.

It doesn't help that there is a pile of conflicting information poured out on a regular basis. Different political factions, environmental groups, extremists and Joe with a keyboard and internet access all contribute their version of the facts with the strong probability that their respective opinions colour the statements more than any scientific fact.

So your dad got rid of an old Buick and bought a 26 year old Volvo to replace it? Are you talking about the national cash for clunkers that Obama backed that enthusiast now blame him for eradicating a lot of old classics?


to the OP and comments following it: I am not a huge fan of the EPA and some of their regulations but to say that car lovers have it better in Europe is a little short sighted. In several European countries, if you make mods to your car then you cannot register for street operations. Some of them are even more restrictive than California is. Be careful what you ask for.

Completely irrelevant but oh well. It's Monday and I'm bored..

https://i.imgflip.com/rdqzu.jpgvia Imgflip Meme Maker

I'm late to this thread, but holy shit! I just hit thanks on a stugray post, this is huge! Since when is he the bringer of rational discourse?! Am I dreaming? Do we now have a new resident asshole?
...If there was hope for stugray, maybe there's hope for the rest of the world too!

The fun part is that Stug actually IS a Rocket Scientist (or at least a space engineer which is close enough)

In my eyes the issue with VW isn't so much about whether global warming is caused by man. The issue is about how much toxic pollution we will allow corporations to dump into our air, sea and land. We already know excessive tailpipe emissions are horrible for humans. We also have plenty of examples as to how corporations like BP, Exxon, Union Carbide, GE, and now the formerly benign Volkswagen will happily break the very laws we enact and try to bust regulation that prevents them from dumping toxic crap wherever they like. It's not the EPA and CARB that forced VW to cheat, they chose to as a way to sell more cars. How anyone defends and apologizes for that kind of conduct is mind blowing.