Volkswagen overtakes Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker

Post by MichaelMoser123 » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 1:11 PM UTC

MagnumOpus wrote: post #151

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #75

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VW is not alone, Fiat Chrysler did the same thing. http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/12/news/companies/epa-emissions... the tricky question: did anybody figure out how to do a clean enough diesel engine without cheating? i think its funny that European countries were pushing Diesel engines just because they emit less CO2, disregarding the NOx problem. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/05/vw-diesel-c...

> the tricky question: did anybody figure out how to do a clean enough diesel engine without cheating Yes. It is just more expensive in terms of maintenance because the urea-based cleaning liquid ("AdBlue") needs to be refilled by the dealer a lot more often if the exhaust scrubbing doesn't cheat and disable it half the time. If you are interested in the details of the topic, I can recommend this CCC conference talk…

Post by forgetsusername » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 1:32 PM UTC

Sacho wrote: post #118

voidlogic wrote: post #114

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>though I hope you're joking about the guillotine I read that remark as this: If corporations are people legally, there should be certain crimes that lead to their dissolution. I assumed this was the proposal: If a corporation does something evil enough, its leaders going to prison and paying a fine isn't enough, it should face the corporate guillotine which revokes its incorporation.

What would that gain you? Wouldnt the same capital holders pool their wealth into a newly minted corporation to continue exploiting the resources they have accrued? Are you going to seize the assets of the corporation and redistribute them? How is your proposed dissolution different from a fine big enough to bankrupt a company?

Post by forgetsusername » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 1:35 PM UTC

bmmayer1 wrote: post #128

voidlogic wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>though I hope you're joking about the guillotine I read that remark as this: If corporations are people legally, there should be certain crimes that lead to their dissolution. I assumed this was the proposal: If a corporation does something evil enough, its leaders going to prison and paying a fine isn't enough, it should face the corporate guillotine which revokes its incorporation.

Right, but one of the issues is that a corporate "person" isn't the same as an individual person, and they don't overlap completely. They are only treated as persons under the law with regard to certain rights/obligations (sue and be sued, open a bank account, pay taxes, etc). But a corporation isn't a person for purposes of criminal culpability; i.e. you could never arrest a corporation for murder. Though corporatio…

Post by pbhjpbhj » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 1:50 PM UTC

tikhonj wrote: post #8

seizethecheese wrote: post #4

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The number in question is vehicles sold, so the only relevant brands here are Volkswagen and Audi, really. Toyota also has Lexus and Scion.

The cheaper European brands like Skoda and SEAT also likely have significant volume. Skoda, for example, sold over a million vehicles—a non-trivial 10% of VW group's total. Audi sold something like 1.8M, probably with better margins than Skoda, so it's certainly a more important brand, but SEAT and Skoda aren't trivial either. Just in terms of car sales, SEAT + Skoda ≈ Audi.

Post by justaman » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 2:13 PM UTC

voidlogic wrote: post #114

bmmayer1 wrote: post #109

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Corporate personhood is a long standing legal principle stretching back at least 400 years to the first joint stock corporations. The creation of limited liability vehicles for investors to pool resources, govern large cooperatives of individuals, simplify complex transactions, and protect investments and intellectual property has led to unprecedented levels of wealth creation for nations and people, and is arguably…

>though I hope you're joking about the guillotine I read that remark as this: If corporations are people legally, there should be certain crimes that lead to their dissolution. I assumed this was the proposal: If a corporation does something evil enough, its leaders going to prison and paying a fine isn't enough, it should face the corporate guillotine which revokes its incorporation.