VW Faces $17B Fine for Emissions Scam

Three mailroom guys, two secretaries, and four janitors.

 

and promoted several software engineers, no press announcement though.

 

Fluent in Turkish, Arabic, and an African language that uses clicks.

Bob Wilson

 

Showing off your Alabama again Bob?

 

A more complete summary: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal | Ars Technica

Bob Wilson

 

must be about time for another hitler reference.

 

That's ok - Bob is to diesel as hill is to the hydrogen hoax. We all have our pet peeves.

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i'm with bob, just figured a funny video might be appropriate. hydrogen, i'm still undecided.

 

It's okay to be undecided - even Einstein was. Eventually he realized - time to get out of town. There, that's your covert Hitler comment

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thanks, i feel better now.

 

The reason Hitler never got the atomic bomb, no Jewish scientist.

Bob Wilson

 

My wife is ½Jewish (but some say if the mom is Jewish - then you are Jewish - because you always know who the mom is) so - (like Jerry Seinfeld's dentist) , I'm free to indulge in jewish stereotype humor. My favorite - my wife tells her grama Gold, "grama, my new boyfriend (hill-decades ago) is not Jewish. Grandma gold asks," what does he do?". Wife responds, "Among other things, he's an attorney" . Grandma gold respons, that's okay then.
True story - I swear.
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i believe you, but you can't top a doctor.

 

One of the best summaries of the VW news conference:
VW admits: U.S. diesel rules had us stumped

'Impossible' to engineer

Volkswagen's investigation will have a clear starting point: 2005, when the company made a "strategic decision to launch a large-scale promotion" of diesel vehicles in the U.S. market, according to a VW statement last week. The tip of the spear would be VW's EA 189 2.0-liter diesel engine.

At that time, the U.S. had far more stringent restrictions on nitrogen oxide emissions than Europe. According to VW, engineers working to develop the new EA 189 diesel engine for the U.S. market "initially" found it "impossible" to engineer an emissions system that could comply with the U.S. rules and also achieve VW's own cost and timing targets.

"Looking back, we regrettably have to recognize that the developers involved in the EA 189 project quite simply could not find a way to meet the tougher NOx limits in the United States by permissible means," Poetsch said. "Or at least they could not find a way they felt at the time to be meaningful and that fitted the time frame and the budget they had been given."

Their workaround: a software sleight that created two settings for the engine's emissions controls, one for lab tests that yielded low NOx and another for real-world driving, which produced significantly higher NOx levels.

It worked just as designed. It was also illegal.

Added hardware

The first U.S. vehicles to go on sale with the EA 189 engine containing the illegal emissions software were the 2009 Jetta and Jetta SportWagen.

Taken together, the Jetta TDI line was heralded as a silver bullet -- a compact car with almost hybridlike fuel economy that was still fun to drive and less expensive than a hybrid. It won scores of "green car" honors.

Volkswagen deployed its "clean diesel" technology to the Golf, Beetle and Passat in the years that followed, establishing a niche in the U.S. market. By the time the EPA announced the illegal software in September, diesels accounted for more than 20 percent of VW's 2015 U.S. sales.

The original EA 189 diesel used a "lean NOx trap" exhaust system to reduce NOx tailpipe emissions. Meanwhile, competitors used a urea-based selective catalytic reduction after-treatment system to reduce NOx in their U.S. market diesels. Those systems proved effective at holding NOx to permissible levels but were more expensive than VW's lean NOx trap.

Yet with the second generation of the EA 189, deployed on the 2012 Passat TDI, VW changed course, using an SCR exhaust aftertreatment system. For the third-generation 2.0-liter diesel, all 2015 models got the SCR system. Still, VW's TDI owners were regularly reporting real-world fuel economy far in excess of their already high EPA ratings.

Even as VW added more NOx-control hardware, it continued to use the software that dictated one emission setting for the lab and another for the road. Moreover, the new SCR system wasn't used to its full NOx-reduction potential, "apparently in the mistaken interest of customers," Poetsch said. The software allowed the NOx-reducing urea solution to be injected at different levels on the road than in the lab.

"As a result NOx levels on the test bench were particularly low, but they were significantly higher on the road," Poetsch said. "With hindsight, this all sounds almost a little banal, but that is perhaps why we find the whole thing so painful."
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This makes sense but is a cruel irony. VW finally makes a diesel capable of meeting the emissions standard but the corrupt software means it also cheats. It is as if someone has $100 in their wallet and gets arrested for shoplifting a pack of gum. Now the 2016, potentially compliant cars are paying the price and VW diesel sales . . . even the ones that can be legal.

If I were mean, I would require the non-compliant cars be brought to compliance before letting 2016 sales resume. At a minimum, put a one-for-one, EA189 car replacement/repair for each 2016 car going on sale.

Bob Wilson

 

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Corporate double speak has always been entertaining. In this slight of word, it is those pesky engineers who failed, not the leadership. The key manipulation is the "they" (engineers) could not meet the corporate goals "given". (I guess the goals came from a burning bush.)

Not a peep about the engineers reporting back the issue to the bosses....since the rest of the story is the bosses kicking them in the teeth and mandating a "solution".

 

agreed, something still smells here, and it is not diesel exhaust. we will likely never get the whole story, just the story that fits, in dribs and drabs, as they finish the spin on each piece.

 

Could it have gone along the lines of "I don't care how you do it, just do it, or find yourself another job"?

And considering the importance of the VW factory to the town/area and how a bad reference could ruin your career, they probably shrugged their shoulders, muttered "**** it/them" and then did the bodge.

I think it's what's not being said in this whole VW issue that's reflecting badly on them, and in their arrogance VW still don't, or don't want to see that.

They've brought this on themselves. VW sales in the UK have collapsed;

Volkswagen sales fall 20% in the UK - BBC News

Kids even mock VW diesel owners who pass them by waving their hand across their nose (intimating the car stinks) or holding their noses at them (for the same reason). VW were even the butt of a lawyers joke;

Stoke-on-Trent woman Margaret Wooliscroft jailed for calling people paedophiles | Daily Mail Online

"David Iles, defending, admitted his client was 'a disagreeable old trout' whose behaviour was 'persistent, outrageous and unpleasant'.

But he added: 'Her disastrous reputation precedes her. The net effect of that was local tittle-tattle. She was about as popular as a diesel Volkswagen. Everybody knew her and everybody was wary of her.'"

About as popular as a diesel Volkswagen, ie, not very! That pretty much sums it up.

 

There was a quote from the New York Times in regards to VW's management style: That is agressive

Quote:

When Mr. Winterkorn took over as VW’s chief executive in 2007, he adopted a similar leadership style. He carried a gauge in his jacket to measure the gaps between car doors and bodies, which he considered an indicator of quality. At auto shows, he was introduced as Professor Doctor Martin Winterkorn, reflecting a Volkswagen institutional preference for formal titles.

According to four current and former Volkswagen executives who witnessed his management style, Mr. Winterkorn was known for publicly dressing down subordinates and occasionally banging car parts on tables to emphasize a point.

Arndt Ellinghorst, a former Volkswagen management trainee, said he witnessed an episode where technicians were showing Mr. Winterkorn the infotainment system on a luxury Phaeton, which was in development at the time before going on sale in 2002. Mr. Winterkorn, he said, mistakenly thought the push-button console was a touch screen, and became critical when it did not respond. When the technicians explained, he said, Mr. Winterkorn accused them of treating him like he was stupid.

Mr. Ellinghorst, now an automotive industry analyst at Evercore ISI, an investment advisory firm, said he decided not to stay at Volkswagen in part because of its management style. “VW had this special culture,” he said. “It was like North Korea without labor camps,” he added, quoting a well known description of the company by Der Spiegel magazine. “You have to obey.”

END of Quote

Thought I would share this tidbit with you. Good Day

 

perfect. the curtain is being pulled back, and the wizard is finally being exposed...

 

Winterkorn resigned few days after the blow at US, didn't he? Does not sound stupid to me...