EPA Going after VW...

[BENZ BOY15]

Man, VW is just taking hit after hit.

I dunno how they begin to recover though somehow they have to.

[Morris Minor]

The guy who I always have deliver me to & from Heathrow Airport has been a loyal VW diesel user, most recently he's taken to Skoda station wagons. He's going to be very upset about this; fuel costs are a huge part of his business overheads.

[ifcar]

The guy who I always have deliver me to & from Heathrow Airport has been a loyal VW diesel user, most recently he's taken to Skoda station wagons. He's going to be very upset about this; fuel costs are a huge part of his business overheads.

Europe has different emissions standards anyway.

[Madman]

VW is giving diesel owners $1,000 in a desperate attempt to keep them in the fold.

http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2015/11/vw-tdi-goodwill-program-will-pay-owners-1-000.html

Somehow, I think it will take more than that to keep many owners happy.

[Payman]

Sort of...

[GoCougs]

Velocity Bob says it happened because of the culture established by Piech: Road & Track - One Man Established the Culture That Led to VW's Emissions Scandal.

"I imagine that at some point, the VW engineering team said to Piëch, "We don't know how to pass the emissions test with the hardware we have." The reply, in that culture, most likely was, "You will pass! I demand it! Or I'll find someone who can do it!"

In these situations, your choice was immediate dismissal or find a way to pass the test and pay the consequences later. Human nature being what it is—if it's lose your job today for sure or lose your job maybe a year from now, we always pick maybe a year from now."

[2o6]

That makes a lot of sense, honestly.

[AutobahnSHO]

far easier to ignore problems or push them under the rug than to own up to them...!

[Madman]

EPA will soon start testing cars in the real world, instead of just a lab.

http://gizmodo.com/epa-decides-to-start-properly-testing-cars-post-dieselg-1741365377?trending_test_b&utm_expid=66866090-62.YkETBcIMTk2uX1oytHipyg.2&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pistonheads.com%2Fgassing%2Ftopic.asp%3Fh%3D0%26t%3D1542617%26d%3D13096.45906%26nmt%3D


Lab tests will still be used to determine the official numbers but the road test will serve to weed out the cheaters.

[Laconian]

Thank Jebus, that is a very nice outcome of this VW mess. I hope the real world is actually real world-ish. Maybe this will spell the death knell of the upshift-happy specsheet queens.

[GoCougs]

We'll see. Bet a handsome some there was plenty of lobbying by automakers to keep the EPA emissions test a lab test that a 6th grader could cheat.

[Morris Minor]

Thought this was pretty good, although the author makes no mention of the urea/water injection systems that address the particulates problem.

"MONTREAL — AS scandals go, it was a juicy one. Volkswagen, one of the world's highest grossing automakers, persuaded consumers it had created a new generation of so-called clean diesel cars — until investigators discovered that defeat devices, which activated emissions controls only when the cars were tested, were concealing the fact that its vehicles emitted up to 40 times the permitted levels of pollutants during regular use.

Volkswagen has been punished with consumer opprobrium, a costly recall and plummeting sales. Yet the public outrage over the fraud obscures a much larger issue.

Volkswagen played a leading role in convincing people to accept a technology that in many countries is causing a precipitous decline in air quality for millions of city-dwellers: the diesel engine."

More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/opinion/sunday/the-dirty-truth-about-clean-diesel.html

[MX793]

Urea injection does nothing for particulates. 

[Morris Minor]

Urea injection does nothing for particulates. 

Yup I stand corrected. It works against NOx but, for particulates, you need filters.