Voltswagen of America • Hacker News Board

Re: Voltswagen of America

#361

Post by davedx » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

milkytron wrote: post #187

kbos87 wrote: post #179

I previously owned a VW, but swore on my life that I'd never buy another one after the emissions cheating scandal. There are plenty of reasons why a VW likely wont be my next choice, but I'm softening my stance a bit. What they did was absolutely reprehensible, but I later learned that the more accurate story is that they bore the brunt of media attention for something that nearly every auto manufacturer was later fo…

Same boat here, I had a VW and sold it about a year and half ago. I will not be buying one again, they've lost me. But also, I don't really appreciate what any of the car manufacturers have been doing (location tracking, internet connectivity, subscription services, etc). Since I sold the VW, I haven't bought a car, and am currently without a car. I don't plan on buying one anytime in the near future.

We sold our VW and bought a Model 3. We had a serious look at VW’s EV lineup for my wife’s next car though. All manufacturers with a genuine EV programme have my support.

Re: Voltswagen of America

#362

Post by Syonyk » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #331

soperj wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and what about the ones at literally every other company that produces diesels?

How about 'rolling coal'?

What about it? No vehicle will do it from the factory, so I don't see how it's relevant here. It's the result of running a diesel massively, massively over-rich (with aftermarket tuning), and it's absolute hell on the engine - that amount of diesel in the cylinder washes down the cylinder walls and wipes off the lubricating film, so the cylinder wear is insane from even fairly short periods of it.

Even in diesel truck circles, "the other 99.9%" of truck owners think it's just as stupid as everyone else does - in addition to being engine abuse, it tends to attract an awful lot of unwelcome attention, and there are people who won't distinguish between "You've modified your truck to belch a column of coal black smoke for attention" and "An older diesel puts out a bit of brown smoke if you get on it hard suddenly," which can lead to some nuisance emissions testing.

My truck (24 years and change) will smoke a bit if I stand on it and the fuel flow outruns boost coming up, but it's also entirely emissions compliant and passes the tests cleanly - it's just something older diesels do under certain conditions. I try my best to avoid it, but if I need to get a trailer up to speed (especially quickly, if someone is coming up hard behind me), it'll put out a bit of brown smoke until the turbo gets spinning.

None of that has anything to do with VW, though. They were burning clean, which any sort of modern high pressure injection system will typically do, they just had really high NOx emissions for their emissions tier.

Re: Voltswagen of America

#363

Post by formerly_proven » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

Laarlf wrote: post #353

formerly_proven wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your criticism is actually in the context of ICE and PHEVs - I assumed you meant pure EVs since that what this thread seemed to be about, and for those autonomy numbers seem to be strictly lower, hence my confusion why WLTP would be more doctored in this regard than NECD.

I have looked at the Model 3 and Hyundai Ioniq and even there the energy usage seems to be rather off. 15 kWh/100km WLTP vs 19 kWh/100km according to spritmonitor on the Model 3. 11 vs 14 with the Ioniq. So yeah, it seems like WLTP is not really accurate for EVs either.

Right, but then that number would have been even more off with NEDC, since that would give them higher range / lower consumption figures.

Re: Voltswagen of America

#364

Post by kbenson » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #293

takinola wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you are in an environment where all your other competitors are cheating, I used to think you had only two options - join in or quit. Now, it occurs to me that there is a third - blow the whistle. If VW, or any other manufacturer, had made a quick call to the authorities and told them exactly what to look for, they would have dealt a huge blow to their competitors and maybe even done a victory lap along the way.

... and make themselves the enemy of the entire industry. That's the reason almost nobody ever blows the whistle: the prisoner's dilemma variant here is the iterated one, and there are more than two players. If you defect, you get blacklisted. It doesn't matter if you're an individual abused by an employer, or a big company that, for a brief moment, grew some conscience. The only time when blowing a whistle makes sen…

> the prisoner's dilemma variant here is the iterated one, and there are more than two players.

The assumption there is that you're all guilty. I agree, when you're all cheating, it's hard to safely get to a point you're not cheating and can inform on others, but the solution to that is simple, don't cheat in the first place. An actual rational actor would realize that cheating opens you up to this situation where you've exposed yourself to a prisoners dilemma that you can't easily extract yourself from, and all for the chance to just have the same advantage as everyone else. Not cheating in the first place and making sure all the cheaters are punished seems a far better strategy.

That said, it's possible this was an emergent phenomenon, where none of them initially were sure the others were cheating, but felt they had to cheat themselves to compete, and by the time it's obvious they are all cheating, there's no chance for one of them to benefit by being clean and calling out all the others.

Re: Voltswagen of America

#365

Post by trgn » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

titzer wrote: post #181

sillyquiet wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans are pronouncing it perfectly correctly as most of us speak English and not German.

Does it bother you when Germans say "zis"? German has no "th" sound, so "zis" is what they start with before they practice. It's similarly grating to Germans to hear their language mispronounced by others. And yet, English has an "f" sound. German has an extremely consistent spelling and essentially all "v"s are pronounced as "f". We share (the latin) alphabet, and English has absolutely no authority, given how incon…

> It's similarly grating to Germans to hear their language mispronounced by others.

Americans are generally very tolerant and patient with non-native speakers butchering proper english. So no, it's not nearly as grating to an American to hear people mispronounce english words than it might be for Germans.

Re: Voltswagen of America

#366

Post by amenod » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #335

greeneggs wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of posting uninformed speculation, you can just Google it… > In 2017, the U.S.-based VW executive Oliver Schmidt, who oversaw emissions issues, was sentenced to seven years in prison and fined $400,000, the maximum possible under a plea deal the German national made with prosecutors after admitting to charges of conspiring to mislead U.S regulators and violate clean-air laws. The US has charged nine people, a…

More recently, he has been released on parole after roughly half his term served.[1] Interestingly, the article says: In Germany, inmates can be released after serving two thirds of their term. Parole after only half of the time is rare, but can be granted to first time offenders who demonstrated good behavior and are deemed unlikely to commit crimes in the future. I don't doubt he exhibited good behavior. I'm not su…

It is still quite likely he won't be repeating the mistake though. Prison is something else than just money.

Re: Voltswagen of America

#367

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

snemvalts wrote: post #201

kbos87 wrote: post #179

I previously owned a VW, but swore on my life that I'd never buy another one after the emissions cheating scandal. There are plenty of reasons why a VW likely wont be my next choice, but I'm softening my stance a bit. What they did was absolutely reprehensible, but I later learned that the more accurate story is that they bore the brunt of media attention for something that nearly every auto manufacturer was later fo…

Are you aware of the fact that most companies cheated with emissions? Volkswagen was just a scapegoat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal#/medi...

[deleted]

Re: Voltswagen of America

#368

Post by rhplus » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

Someone has been playing the long game of domain speculation:

    https://who.is/whois/voltswagen.com

     Registered On: 2003-04-18
        Expires On: 2021-04-18

Re: Voltswagen of America

#369

Post by Krasnol » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

kbos87 wrote: post #179

I previously owned a VW, but swore on my life that I'd never buy another one after the emissions cheating scandal. There are plenty of reasons why a VW likely wont be my next choice, but I'm softening my stance a bit. What they did was absolutely reprehensible, but I later learned that the more accurate story is that they bore the brunt of media attention for something that nearly every auto manufacturer was later fo…

I always owned Toyotas and Nissans but when I got together with my SO, I sold my last Toyota (for a spectacular price even though it had quite a lot km) and we kept her VW. Afterwards we bought another one.

The sheer amount of issues those cars had was astonishing. From bad electronics to just terrible manufacturing (water running down somewhere along the doors and causing mold inside for example) really cured me from VW and German cars altogether. We sold the VW when that emission thing came up and it looked like we might not be able to drive in our city with it anymore (Germany). Now we own a Hyundai Ioniq and it's great. I can even flash the firmware or update maps myself. The amount of electronic stuff that came inclusive is something you can only dream of with German manufacturers.

I'm never going back from Japanese/Korean cars again.

Re: Voltswagen of America

#370

Post by Aeronwen » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

mikece wrote: post #45

Tade0 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Speed-Wagon would catch on among the younger generations.

If memory services, that marque is owned by General Motors and the modern version of the Speedwagon are GMC trucks. Would be catchy to actually release a new vehicle with the Speedwagon model name.

Reo as Ransom Eli Olds' second car company, the first one is what became the Oldsmobile divison of GM. But GM never owned Reo.

Supposedly Volvo owns the name now.