Volkswagen under investigation over illegal software that masks pollution

[Dutch77]

Zee Germans sometimes get held to different standards than others

Toyota hid the truth about unintended acceleration issues in the USA, some estimates put the death toll near 100, and they eventually settled for only $1.2 billion.

I hear where you are coming from feenix, no doubt it could and should have been handled differently, but like with everything they took a calculated risk and perhaps lost this one. VW needs to answer to its shareholders, not the mindless ramblings of some of our Loony Lefties.

As for the environmental afterthought Transporter - don't we all love the Hollywood Liberals flying around in their private jets to attend conferences to tell the rest of us how terrible we are and how we should live!

[feenix74]

Absolutely, bloody NIMBY-ies "we support being green and doing the right thing but only if it does not impact on our lifestyle" (while we sip on our disposable coffee cups, drive around in our gas guzzling SUV and fly overseas for our holidays) and the Flat-Earthers "we are not causing climate change" are no better (while we can keep gulping down our disposable coffee cups, drive around in our gas guzzling luxury 4WDs and fly overseas for our holidays)

Sorry but life is all about compromises and sometimes we have to sacrifice our own desires and wants for the greater good of all of our kids and grandkids. If you choose not to believe in climate change science, that is fine but remember we always believe that we will not have a car accident (because we are a safe driver, and we have the superior driving skills to avoid an accident) but that does not stop us from buying car insurance, just in case.

[Dutch77]

Sorry but life is all about compromises and sometimes we have to sacrifice our own desires and wants for the greater good of all of our kids and grandkids. If you choose not to believe in climate change science, that is fine but remember we always believe that we will not have a car accident (because we are a safe driver, and we have the superior driving skills to avoid an accident) but that does not stop us from buying car insurance, just in case.

I'm all for doing the right thing environmentally but yes I am in the 'flat-earth' brigade obviously. Climate change has been happening since day dot, but because it suits a particular narrative today we suddenly want to destroy the Western economies and our lives to achieve nothing but the Left's fantasies.

I say everyone keep driving your diesel Dubs.

[feenix74]

Also Nox impacts on individuals health and your personal “environment “ much more immediately than other issues like carbon . Takata airbags/floor mat accelerator issue maybe 50-100 deaths v Nox 10,000 per year........ but that’s just image right?
For the right put that in $$ terms. If you fined toymota 10milion per death (1.2billon fine) vw’s Should be around $120billion , correct?

However each of those Toyota accelerator deaths can be directly attributable to a Toyota motor vehicle.

How can you attribute all Nox deaths to just VW dieselgates? Diesel powered motor vehicles are not the only source of Nox, they are not even necessarily the greatest source of Nox. Exhibit A from the US EPA website:

[feenix74]

I'm all for doing the right thing environmentally but yes I am in the 'flat-earth' brigade obviously. Climate change has been happening since day dot, but because it suits a particular narrative today we suddenly want to destroy the Western economies and our lives to achieve nothing but the Left's fantasies.

I say everyone keep driving your diesel Dubs.

I do not disagree with you that climate change happened before us humans existed (just ask the dinosaurs . . .) and well after we cease to exist. There is enough scientific evidence to indicate that modern human society is causing climate change that is occurring at a very rapid rate, and if we do not change this the rate of climate change will be more rapid that we or other species can adapt to survive it.

No, I am not saying that we should all become tree huggers and live like hunter-gathers. However, there are simple things that each of us can do to tread lightly on the earth, it is just a matter of consciously choosing to make a change in the lifestyle that we live to try to minimise our impact on the environment. Yes, this may mean we need to fundamentally change some of the building block to our western economies/societies but these changes can be entrepreneurial opportunities if we are willing to reach out and grasp them instead of trying to desperately hold onto our old ways.

[Transporter]

It certainly will have to be the fundamental change, once the full electric car is here and all transportation is electric, the petrol station gone and dusted.
Hang on, how much taxes the government collects from fuels? It looks like they will have a massive hole in the budget and I’m not sure whether the improvement in our health will compensate enough.

[feenix74]

You noted earlier that other makes are at 2-6 times lab Nox emissions on road compared to 40-80 times for VW. The Onroad Diesel Nox emissions in the pie graph are for all onroad vehicle regardless of make/model and type (include heavy trucks etc). So finding evidence of what the make up of that Onroad Diesel piece of pie is before make wild accusations and blaming one vehicle manufacturer for all the worlds woes would probably be a prudent. Additionally, there is now evidence emerging that the on road emissions from petrol powered vehicles is also higher than the lab testing results (shock, horror). Therefore more research and evidence would be required to validate your assertion that diesel vehicle emissions make up 2/3 of all Nox emissions.

I work in the construction/project management/facilities management, most of the tradies I deal with use petrol Toyota Hiluxes not diesel. I am sure that in the mining and agricultural industries that most of the Hiluxes are diesels but I would need more evidence before I would be comfortable with assertion that a vast majority of Hiluxes sold in Australia are diesels.

Very happy with figures from the Germany scientific study. However, while it is a German study and uses German emission data, it actually extropolates that over the Europe to come up with an estimate of 1,200 deaths across Europe due to the excess Nox emissions from VWs.

we estimate median mortality impacts from VW excess emissions in Germany to be 1200 premature deaths in Europe, corresponding to 13 000 life-years lost and 1.9 billion EUR in costs associated with life-years lost. Approximately 60% of mortality costs occur outside Germany.

[Dutch77]

Except the others aren't all running at only 5-6 times, oops.

[feenix74]

Yes. Basic maths but not the correct way to use statistics and based on flawed assumptions.

Your assertion that just because VW has sold the most cars that they are responsible for all the Nox woes of the world does not hold up to examination of the facts. In 2016, VW sold 10.31 million vehicle, making them number one, compared to Toyota that sold 10.175 million and out of a total of 88.1 million million cars and light commercial vehicles were sold worldwide in 2016. So VW's share of the pie was 11.7% of total vehicle sales in 2016. To put is simply, just over 1 in 10 cars sold in 2016 worldwide was a VW. You are going after the 1 in 10 and giving the other 9 a free pass?

SALES OF DIESEL-POWERED PASSENGER CARS AND LIGHT TRUCKS

In 2014, over 16.4 million passenger cars and light trucks were sold in the United States [USDOC BEA 2015]. Diesel-powered cars accounted for about 3 percent of total auto sales in the United States, which is considerably lower than 50 percent in Europe [LUSSENHOP 2015]. In 2014, Volkswagen accounted for more than half of U.S. diesel car sales (figure 2) with diesel version of just three models—the Jetta, Passat, and Golf [COBB 2015].


Only 1.5 percent of all light duty vehicles (including passenger cars, sport utility vehicles, minivans, and all but the largest pickup trucks and vans) in Model Year 2014 were diesel-powered. This percentage is up from less than 0.1 percent in the mid-90s, but below the peak of 5.9 percent in Model Year 1981. In model year 2014 Volkswagen’s fleet had the highest percentage of diesel-powered light duty vehicles in the United States (20.1 percent), followed by Daimler (6.9 percent), BMW (6.0 percent), Chrysler-Fiat (2.8 percent), and GM (0.5 percent) [USEPA 2014].


Diesel is more popular for medium and heavy trucks than passenger cars in the U.S. For example, 72 percent of the trucks with a gross vehicle weight rating 10,001 and above sold in the United States in 2013 were diesel-powered, up from 69 percent in 2009 [USDOE ORNL 2015].

So breaking this information down, in Europe 50% of vehicle sales were diesels. VW share of that was 11.7% (ok europe is their home turf, so lets assume that they take a bigger proportion of that, say we double it to 23.5%). This plus the dieselgate cheating at its worst results in 1,200 extra deaths in Europe. Now the US data indicates that diesel cars are 3%, so how does that suddenly make VW dieselgate cars responsible for 10,000 extra deaths worldwide when the greatest concentration of VW dieselgate cars are in europe and they cause 1,200 deaths there?

As noted by the USBTS, diesel is most popular for medium and heavy trucks. That is the cause of the vast majority of the Nox emissions by Onroad Diesel vehicles, not passenger vehicle. So may I suggest that you redirect your rant at International, Freightliner, Kenworth, Volvo and Peterbilt instead?

[feenix74]

Finally, hilux.... are you a 1percenter?
Toyota stopped importing all v6 hilux models last year as they where only 1 percent of ALL sales. They now only sell the 2.7 4cyl in the basic 2wd lowlux, the vast vast majority for several years are diesel , 2.4 and 2.8 tdi motors currently , and even when they had the 3.0td the petrol was 1% of sales.
Toyota to axe HiLux V6 - motoring.com.au
Also they where the last major producer with a petrol 4wd ute, the others are all diesel. Mitsubishi, ford, Nissan , Mazda and VW are all diesel Utes .

No I am an 11.7% (I like my VWs).

The 1% in that article refers specifically to the 4.0-litre petrol V6, not the 2.7 litre petrol 4 cylinder engine. I do not have the data/statistics but I would hazard a guess that Toyota sell many more Lowluxes than they do anything else (most fleet vehicles tend to be Lowluxes). 4WD utes are going to have many more diesels than petrols but, without having the data, I cannot confirm how many Hilux and other utes are 2WD vs 4WD.

[Transporter]

The question is. Is google always right? I’ve seen the science not being always right and the past knowledge corrected by turning it completely upside down. Don’t depend only on google, figure it out for yourself, use common sense and don’t blindly trust media, often they are just after attention only, nothing else.

Most, if not all here know that the cars pollute and honestly, for this emission discussion I think that you and some others would have a better audience on some Green Party forum, not at the car enthusiasts forum.
I see it that the agriculture to feed more and more people on the planet is bringing us closer to the climate change than the cars.

IMO, the real fix to the pollution and the climate change would be, one child policy across the continents.

But, it doesn’t go with the plans of the richest, right up to now they need more people/consumers to create their wealth, not less. Will it change when they don’t need humans as workers and AI will suffice. I don’t believe that the do gooders will convince them to share their wealth on the scale that will be needed.

[feenix74]

Bzzz, wrong. Vw In the EU sold over 26%of the cars there , not 11%. Google is your friend ...
Bzzz wrong again, if vw ,according to your cut n paste,sold over half the car diesels in the USA then according to your previous pie chart they are responsible for well over half the Nox emissions in the USA from diesel cars.
Further using the facts that vw sells over 25% in the eu and 50% of diesel sales in the USA , yes they do own a massive chunk of not the majority of emissions.
Here’s where your pie really hits you,,.
now if according to you , in the USA diesel cars are only 3% of sales
Yet according to your pre scam pie 19% of emissions , when you factor in the scam and the real emissions (20-40 times lab test)1.5% of the cars sold are putting out over 30% of the NOX!
Finally the vw “look over there, look elsewhere “old kumbya look at trucks , been there , done that , in this thread. Trucks which as a result of a previous scam by a manufacturer in the USA actually put out less Nox than the VW did in the test where it did 40 x levels. Whoopsie!

P.s really google is you freind :
Hilux , no1 47,000 sold 2017 of which
35,000 where 4wd, so no the 2wd version was about 25% of sales.
Ford Ranger Australia’s best-selling 4x4 2017 | 4X4 Australia
VFACTS 2017: Toyota and HiLux top sales again - motoring.com.au

Absolutely, Google is my friend.

So Google shows my guess of VW being 23.5% of sales in Europe was close to the real figure of 26% then.

So Google shows you that your assertion that VW is responsible for 2/3rds of all Nox emissions is incorrect, that your revised assertion they are responsible for a majority of all Nox emissions is incorrect, and now you are down to 30% of all Nox emissions. Absolutely, it is appalling that such a small percentage of vehicles are responsible for so much Nox emissions. It gives weight to why the Americans are throwing the book at VW (especially because they not only tried to cheat the system but then tried to cover up their cheating instead of confessing when caught). I am sure that, in good time, the authorities will go after the other manufacturers because they too have exceed the legal limits and done so by gaming the system. However, I am sure that the other manufacturers will have learnt from VW's dieselgate, admit culpability and plea-bargain their way to reduced sentences.

So Google shows you that petrol Hiluxes are 20-25% of all Hilux sales (assuming that some 2WD Hiluxes are diesels) not 1% as you originally claimed. I did not know the 4WD to 2WD sales numbers for Hilux, so Google is my friend and has taught me something new (and so have you, so thank you )

[Transporter]

Bit diversionary and off topic? Or maybe a bit confused?
China tried that policy and it failed miserably.

In your opinion only.
Environment, pollution, overpopulation and global warming go hand in hand, you should know that. Not me? I’m not a tree hugger or don’t pretend to be one.

“Off topic maybe?”
Not maybe, definitely! This is a car enthusiasts forum, not a green party or whirlpool forum.

If China one child policy didn’t work, they’d have much more people to feed now and heaps more in the future. Also they wouldn’t eased that policy, if it didn’t work. Once again check your facts, cause you must have some very old scqued information.

It seems to me that you’re bashing empty straws by keeping the conversation in this thread. We aren’t in the US and you can’t squeeze anything more from the dieselgate for your personal gain in the country where there is not a proper emission law.

[ian]

97% of all CO2 occurs naturally Man is responsible for only 3%
Of that 3% Australia is responsible for just 1.5% =0002%of the CO2 in the Atmosphere
Yet the Polar bears are now in greater numbers , Crops are growing better as CO2 is actually a plant food
The Seas have not risen as predictad way back in 1979 by the Nixon Government who warned the New york would be 3 metres under water by the year 2000
the only one made rich from Global warming is Al Gore

[feenix74]

I think Elon Musk, plus the factories in China manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines might be making a small handful of change from climate change . . . but that is not necessarily a bad thing, we just have to be ready to embrace the changes and the entrepreneurial opportunities that are presented as a result.