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VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

arstechnica.com

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Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#11

Post by sliverstorm »

scott_karana wrote: post #9
theli0nheart wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, such a draconian rule would hurt the owners of the cars more than VW. It would essentially force every car buyer to buy a new car. Plus, there are plenty of cars on the road built before 2000 that have even worse emissions than these VWs. Would you propose taking those cars off the road as well?

Well, the potential EPA fine per-car is $37,500. An amazing move would be for the EPA to force the cars off the road, and force VW to pay for the affected customers' new cars .

Or the EPA could force VW to release an update for the affected cars' ECU, and avoid sending a million perfectly serviceable cars to the landfill.

Which, I believe, is what is supposed to happen.

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#12

Post by eropple »

sliverstorm wrote: post #11
scott_karana wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the potential EPA fine per-car is $37,500. An amazing move would be for the EPA to force the cars off the road, and force VW to pay for the affected customers' new cars .

Or the EPA could force VW to release an update for the affected cars' ECU, and avoid sending a million perfectly serviceable cars to the landfill. Which, I believe, is what is supposed to happen.

Any such update will be effectively optional, though, won't it? (I don't know, I don't own a car anymore and the last one I had used an ECU probably dumber than today's toasters.)

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#13

Post by awjr »

Theodores wrote: post #3

I just wish one government would say to VW - 'sorry folks, those cars do not meet emission standards, they are destroying the health of the general public to an extent that our health services do not want so please take those cars off the road today.' Thereafter the police being instructed to stop any offending VW found on the roads and tow it to the yard, to be released once VW fixed it, with yard storage charges ap…

Let's be clear, every manufacturer was playing this "game". Yes VW played it harder than most and got caught out. The reality is there is no petrol/diesel manufacturer that has been found to be playing it absolutely down the middle.

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#14

Post by ahupp »

Theodores wrote: post #3

I just wish one government would say to VW - 'sorry folks, those cars do not meet emission standards, they are destroying the health of the general public to an extent that our health services do not want so please take those cars off the road today.' Thereafter the police being instructed to stop any offending VW found on the roads and tow it to the yard, to be released once VW fixed it, with yard storage charges ap…

"It depends on whether air quality matters or not. That is a fairly black and white thing"

On the contrary, I don't think it could be less of a "black or white thing". It sounds like you're making an argument that these cars are producing a material increase in overall NOx, causing a public health hazard. I haven't seen that argument anywhere else. Do you have data on what the net increase in NOx is? .1%, 1% and 100% would mean very different things.

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#17

Post by Swizec »

sliverstorm wrote: post #10
Theodores wrote: post #3

I just wish one government would say to VW - 'sorry folks, those cars do not meet emission standards, they are destroying the health of the general public to an extent that our health services do not want so please take those cars off the road today.' Thereafter the police being instructed to stop any offending VW found on the roads and tow it to the yard, to be released once VW fixed it, with yard storage charges ap…

That sounds a lot like punishing the consumer for being duped by VW. On the bright side, VW is a very small portion of the market, and I suspect the cheating cars are not much worse than older cars that we allow on the road, which are held to less stringent standards. So while it's completely unacceptable behavior of VW, it's also not the end of the world if people keep driving them until VW issues the software updat…

> On the bright side, VW is a very small portion of the market

In the US. In Europe Volkswagen accounts for 25% of new car registrations. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-17/volkswagen...

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#18

Post by bri3d »

eropple wrote: post #12
sliverstorm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the EPA could force VW to release an update for the affected cars' ECU, and avoid sending a million perfectly serviceable cars to the landfill. Which, I believe, is what is supposed to happen.

Any such update will be effectively optional, though, won't it? (I don't know, I don't own a car anymore and the last one I had used an ECU probably dumber than today's toasters.)

States with state inspection could plausibly require proof of some form that the update has been applied. States which use OBD-II diagnostics should generally already be capable of doing this by reading the CALID supplied by the ECU (it's part of the standard), so they could work off of that.

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#19

Post by stonogo »

eropple wrote: post #12
sliverstorm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the EPA could force VW to release an update for the affected cars' ECU, and avoid sending a million perfectly serviceable cars to the landfill. Which, I believe, is what is supposed to happen.

Any such update will be effectively optional, though, won't it? (I don't know, I don't own a car anymore and the last one I had used an ECU probably dumber than today's toasters.)

They already effectively are. Aftermarket ECUs that completely ignore emission standards are (and have been) widely available.

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#20

Post by semi-extrinsic »

eropple wrote: post #12
sliverstorm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the EPA could force VW to release an update for the affected cars' ECU, and avoid sending a million perfectly serviceable cars to the landfill. Which, I believe, is what is supposed to happen.

Any such update will be effectively optional, though, won't it? (I don't know, I don't own a car anymore and the last one I had used an ECU probably dumber than today's toasters.)

In Norway there has been talk from the DMV equivalent [1] that people who don't have their cars updated in the recall will have their registrations cancelled. So if you keep driving, the police will stop you. Automated license plate scanners and all that, I don't think many will skip it.

What's more likely is that if many people feel their cars are sluggish after the update, aftermarket diesel tuning will become (even more) popular.

[1] Source (in Norwegian): http://www.vg.no/forbruker/bil-baat-og-motor/dieselskandalen...

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