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F.B.I. Arrests Volkswagen Executive on Conspiracy Charges in Emissions Scandal

nytimes.com

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Re: F.B.I. Arrests Volkswagen Executive on Conspiracy Charges in Emissions Scandal

#71

Post by stefantalpalaru »

sintaxi wrote: post #31
dovdovdov wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this blows up it's over for most german car manufacturers. They sold a lot of diesel cars, and most of them probably have some hacks to meet Euro standards. They should be forced to fix all cars, reimburse buyers for any losses, and be forced(!) to go green asap (which probably means at least 10 years, so yeah there should be some force)!

I think it would be a reasonable to forbid VW from ever making a combustible engine ever again. Forcing them to go green or perish. It's some Lex Luther level shit they pulled.

Actually, VW is one of the least polluting offenders: http://www.theicct.org/news/press-release-vehicle-tests-show...

Volvo, Renault, Hyundai, Opel and Audi are much worse, as you can see in the last graph.

There's also a highly polluting Jeep at the top: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/30/wide-ran...

So this whole "let's make an example out of VW" has nothing to do with the scale of the crime.

Re: F.B.I. Arrests Volkswagen Executive on Conspiracy Charges in Emissions Scandal

#72

Post by LeifCarrotson »

akerro wrote: post #62
PunchTornado wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. see spain.

What happened there?

Not much:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-spain...

In October, one Spanish court ordered "two Spanish VW units" (dealers?) to pay €5000 to one buyer of an Audi which was affected by the software. VW promised to appeal, but that's the last I was able to find on the issue. There have not been large-scale decisions that I'm aware of.

Re: F.B.I. Arrests Volkswagen Executive on Conspiracy Charges in Emissions Scandal

#73

Post by stefantalpalaru »

imagist wrote: post #69
easytiger wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You fell for it.. this is US economic imperialism, and nothing to do about emissions.

Maybe, but it's also justice being served. When a poor black man in America is arrested for a rape, it's racism and classism because a rich white man is far more likely to get away with that crime. But it's also justice. I don't think you would argue that we should let poor black men get away with rape just to make things more fair.

> it's also justice being served

Is it really? All the diesel manufacturers cheat and VW cheats the least:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/30/wide-ran...

http://www.theicct.org/news/press-release-vehicle-tests-show...

Re: F.B.I. Arrests Volkswagen Executive on Conspiracy Charges in Emissions Scandal

#74

Post by londons_explore »

ddeck wrote: post #54
zde wrote: post #51

I don't get this. VW (and other car manufacturers) did NOT cheat. Their cars have (AFAIK) passed all the emission tests required. Do they produce more emissions outside the test envelope? You cry on wrong grave then...

Cars aren't only required to pass emissions tests, they're required to have their emissions within the specified limits at all times. The purpose of the tests is to ensure compliance.

This is not the case.

If it were the case, the regulations would say "No more than X NOX emitted per mile, even when climbing Mount Everest, even when 5 years old, even when poorly maintained, and even when used with low quality fuel, and in all other conditions anyone might put them in."

That clearly isn't reasonable, so instead the rules are written to say "They must pass XYZ tests". As long as those tests are passed, they meet the standard.

IMO, the main culprit here is the lawmakers for not correctly designing the rules and test procedures to be sufficiently realistic. Specifically, they shouldn't allow the CO2 test and NOX tests to be done in different conditions.

They should instead say "your car will be assigned to one member of EPA staff every day for a month. They will drive their regular daily journeys with it, and all emissions recorded. If you aren't happy with the test results (for example due to a cold week), you may ask for a retest.".

Re: F.B.I. Arrests Volkswagen Executive on Conspiracy Charges in Emissions Scandal

#75

Post by mpweiher »

edanm wrote: post #70
JohnGB wrote: post #46

I wonder if the same would have happened to an American company in the USA. If so, what's the deal with the bankers that did orders of magnitude more damage?

I think it depends on whether they did anything illegal. Doing damage is not by itself enough to arrest anyone, there has to be something illegal about having acted in the way that caused the damage.

> I think it depends on whether they did anything illegal.

Less than you might think. Have you seen Three Felonies a Day[1] ? Or heard of "indict a ham sandwich"[2]?

The law being what it is today, and prosecutorial discretion being what it is, it is almost entirely up to whether someone wants to prosecute.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp...

[2] http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/indi...

Re: F.B.I. Arrests Volkswagen Executive on Conspiracy Charges in Emissions Scandal

#76

Post by usrusr »

ddeck wrote: post #54
zde wrote: post #51

I don't get this. VW (and other car manufacturers) did NOT cheat. Their cars have (AFAIK) passed all the emission tests required. Do they produce more emissions outside the test envelope? You cry on wrong grave then...

Cars aren't only required to pass emissions tests, they're required to have their emissions within the specified limits at all times. The purpose of the tests is to ensure compliance.

Not true. Emissions vary a lot depending on environmental factors and optimizing for the worst case scenario (which is what "within limits at all times" implies) would likely result terrible averages. Even within the test cycle, the engine can be as dirty as they like at any point in time, as long as the average stays within bounds.

What they are not allowed to do is change the way the engine operates when under test vs on the road, and this is exactly what happened at Volkswagen. The VW case is not the first (ruling like this tends to be reactive, and slow...), but it might be the first were the response is firm enough to deter future would be offenders.

Re: F.B.I. Arrests Volkswagen Executive on Conspiracy Charges in Emissions Scandal

#77

Post by literallycancer »

usrusr wrote: post #20
tomp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pollution is murder (statistically).

Making cars is "statistical murder". Bad schools are "statistical murder". Selling cheesecake is "statistical murder". Enforce the laws you have to help keeping honest people honest, but please do not selectively blow individual cases out of proportion with gut appeal tactics.

You can decide not to buy a cheesecake. What am I supposed to do when the pollution limits in my hometown are exceeded basically the whole winter?

Re: F.B.I. Arrests Volkswagen Executive on Conspiracy Charges in Emissions Scandal

#78

Post by freehunter »

tomp wrote: post #58
usrusr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making cars is "statistical murder". Bad schools are "statistical murder". Selling cheesecake is "statistical murder". Enforce the laws you have to help keeping honest people honest, but please do not selectively blow individual cases out of proportion with gut appeal tactics.

All these examples are regulated by laws that control the extent of damage done. Clearly the society believes that the existence of these is, after accounting for the positive and negative effects, better than nonexistence. But, skirting the laws in most of these cases can result in harm/death, and should be treaded as such (e.g. selling cars with faulty brakes, selling cakes with too much trans fats... a bit harder…

To elaborate a bit more on that (because I agree with you): selling cheesecake is not a crime, even though foods high in calories and sugar are known to cause obesity which causes premature death. It's the consumer's choice to buy these, but since they are recognized as potentially dangerous, the government does regulate the production of cheesecake. There are ingredients you cannot use, you have to disclose the ingredients you do use, and you have to include a nutrition facts label that shows how much sugar and how many calories are included in this cheesecake.

What VW did was like a cheesecake maker being told they're not allowed to use trans-fats, submitting their cheesecake to the FDA for testing to prove it doesn't use trans-fats, and then selling a completely different product on the market that does include trans-fats, but not printing that on the label.

You're allowed to sell cheesecake even if we know it's harmful, you just have to follow some regulations to make sure the harm is contained to a reasonable level and to ensure that consumers are well-informed of the risks they're undertaking. VW cheated the regulations and lied on their label. Of course they should be punished.

Re: F.B.I. Arrests Volkswagen Executive on Conspiracy Charges in Emissions Scandal

#79

Post by literallycancer »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #22
hueving wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>multimillion or billion dollar catastrophes while the lowest classes get life sentences for ruining a single life. Is the implication here that causing economic harm is the same as murder?

If you think of money as labor and say there are 2000 work hours in a year, then at $10/hour a $1 million waste of money is wasting 500 work-years of human life. 2000 hours/(365 days * 24 hours) = 22%, so that is 500 * 0.22 = 114 lives wasted on a fruitless project. If a wasteful project is government, then you have the additional complication that the government ultimately uses police and SWAT teams to enforce the t…

1 000 000 / 20 000 is 50

50 work years or 11.4 years of time are wasted per $1 million.

Re: F.B.I. Arrests Volkswagen Executive on Conspiracy Charges in Emissions Scandal

#80

Post by freehunter »

londons_explore wrote: post #74
ddeck wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars aren't only required to pass emissions tests, they're required to have their emissions within the specified limits at all times. The purpose of the tests is to ensure compliance.

This is not the case. If it were the case, the regulations would say "No more than X NOX emitted per mile, even when climbing Mount Everest, even when 5 years old, even when poorly maintained, and even when used with low quality fuel, and in all other conditions anyone might put them in." That clearly isn't reasonable, so instead the rules are written to say "They must pass XYZ tests". As long as those tests are pass…

The problem with your reasoning is that these cars were designed to not meet the emissions requirements from the factory. From day one, they were only designed to meet the emissions standards during the testing, not on the road. They were purposefully designed to cheat on the test.

Your statement would be true if test performance varied from real-world performance due to environmental factors, but that's not the case. Test performance varies from real-world performance by design. And then they lied about it. That's why they're being punished.

I do agree that the test should be changed to take that inevitability out of the equation, but for this situation the reason they're being punished is because they designed their cars specifically to cheat on the existing test.

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