How could VW engineers ever imagine they could hoodwink the American market with fake emissions results?
If ever there was an example of the mighty falling, this is it! VW Group ads here recently have even managed to underline their leadership with ‘Germans do not make jokes’ – a tag-line that I suspect is now verboten.
The auto industry worldwide struggles with recalls but this is surely the biggest b*ll*ck ever dropped. Quite a feat for a firm to lose market value worth $20 bn – or twice the total value of the French rival Peugeot!
Ziz is ze Wnterhorn of our discontent, nicht Wahr? Hehehehe
Boadicea's Chariot 
Janus, I am saying nothing here. I will leave it to you know who to comment. I prefer to just
laughwatch from the sidelines. 🙂I guess recalls are usually the result of genuine errors. This is a deliberate attempt to con the market.
And now Merkel’s gubmint is said to have winked at it. This will run and run…… 😱
And VW were supposed to be buying the Red Bull F1 racing team. I don’t think they’ll have enough cash left to buy one set of racing tyres.
Hi Janus, yes I think you expect a remark from my side. To be absolutely honest, because this is rather serious in my mind, I don’t know what to say, because otherwise one could think I am a traitor. At the moment I feel a lot of bad sentiment about my country, might this perhaps help in the long run??? Or is a country not able to learn lessons?? I leave everybody here rather with open questions instead of going into a monologue about what I think about Germany. Have a good day.
Vorsprung Durch ….I leave the last word to others 🙂
I prefer Jaguar personally but that isn’t the point. For some time now Germany has been living on its reputation and its history rather than its present.VW really aren’t an exception to this rule. In order to expand they simply abandoned quality standards and have done everything possible to simple grow larger for the sake of growing larger. In fact, it would be fair to argue that they’re no longer truly a “German” company. In China their vehicles are made in China, in North America, Mexico. Even in Europe more and more manufacturing has been moved east of the former Iron Curtain. Why does this shock anyone?No one would bat an eye if GM, Ford or Chrysler did something like this.
Gazoopi: “Vorsprung Durch Bollocks”?
I’ve just asked my local garage guy about this. He says that all manufacturers are at it. Blames the regulators for encouraging the use of diesels and then setting unachievable emission standards.
From my knowledge of such codes, they are negotiated with industry representatives, not simply imposed. If the industry set the bar too high to impress their markets, it’s all their own fault.
Janus: regulators and the eco Mafia have a pre-determined outcome in mind. The only allow for negotiation on details and points. We need to tell both to get stuffed.
I can’t agree with that conspiracy theory – but will go along with a theory that points to an industry cartel whose aim is to suck in the regulators. The source of technical data reviewed by codes committees is predominantly the manufacturers’ own research operations, not ‘independent’ institutions.
Perhaps my thinking is too shallow for you guys, but I really believe it is about power crazy CEO’s trying out every trick they can to become even more powerful and it is time to have independent regulators who are tasked to track, monitor and stop this kind of theft at cost of the consumers, in other industry spies sponsored by related intelligence services. If people want the fame, then they need to live with the consequences, the blame and if this is very big then they should go to prison, as simple as that.
Fru gaz, I agree. Most businessmen spend years trying to observe the rules, not to break them.
This is what happens when there is over regulation. By making such complex and overbearing rules it invites companies to try to evade them. Of course we need to make sure cars are clean (and stop worrying about the non-event that is carbon dioxide induced global warming) but that is best done by engineers and scientists, not bureaucrats! The cities in the US are now much cleaner without this sort of nonsense.
4EEG: I thought that this VW scandal was about Nox gases, not CO2.
My understanding is that petrol engines generate more CO2 and Diesel engines more ‘particulates’. In recent years the emphasis has been on reducing CO2 hence encouragement to develop the Diesels.
This will cost VW billions of €$£, much of it ending up in the pockets of lawyers. The money would be better spent on developing cleaner technology and maybe a few cycle paths. But that won’t happen.
The regulators are complicit for allowing ( deliberately ?) this to happen
Gaz: That is my point. Because everyone has been concentrating on the non-problem of CO2, they have only created perfunctory testing that is easily overcome for the real environmental threats.
The word is that BMW has also been transgressing. Not long to wait now before the sainted Merc is implicated, followed by all the rest of the mass market brands.
It’s a cartel, I tell you! 😡
Janus: Unlikely in the case of BMW and extremely so in the case of D-B. Both of them and many of the other car makers are using catalytic chemistry to clean up diesel exhaust gases. Mercedes “Bluetec” vehicles are fitted with tanks of chemical that are injected into a catalytic converter in the exhaust stream, this reacts the Nitrogen oxides to form Nitrogen and Oxygen to meet the emission regs. The tank of 32% urea in water lasts about 20,000 miles after which the car goes into “limp” mode until it is refilled. (FYI Peeing in the tank will not provide urea of the right concentration – it has been tried). Heavy diesel trucks here use the same technique, Diesel Exhaust Fluid “DEF” (Google is available) can be purchased at many truck stops here for about $7.00 per gallon, if your Mercedes dealer fills your tank they will charge up to $800 for the job (usually 5 gallons) good business all round.
For several years now many auto engineers have doubted VW’s ability to meet the specs. without catalytic converters, the chemistry just does not work that way, this outcome is no surprise.