Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted November 15, 2015 Author Share Posted November 15, 2015 An Excellent article Zeno. It explains very well why this is different than what most have done in the past... and what is likely to happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted April 22, 2016 Author Share Posted April 22, 2016 (edited) Well.. Since VW's plan to reprogram their diesels to meet emissions standards has been rejected for numerous reasons..... VW is now looking at just buying back all the cars here in the USA. The plan they submitted in Court yesterday will cost them about $1 billion just for car repairs/buy backs here in the USA. VW has currently set aside $7.5 billion right now for repairs/buybacks. They indicated yesterday they will likely have to increase that to $10 billion. This only covers the cars, this does not cover the fines. In the USA each fine is calculated based on the car's retail value. They are fined on a per car basis. I did a rough calculation and if they fine them $30K per car (this is likely a low number), at 500K cars that = another $15 billion in fines. Then there is Europe... which has almost 5 times as many of these TDI's... yeah the math does not look good for them. So really, the repairs or buybacks alone are going to be a crushing blow for VW to absorb financially. The fines could in fact jeopardize their ability to survive. No government is going to kill a company that employs that many people, but they are likely going to take them very close to the edge as punishment for such blatant law breaking. I think VW is going to take a financial beating from hell in the coming months. Edited April 22, 2016 by Zathrus~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forrester~SPARTA~ Posted April 24, 2016 Share Posted April 24, 2016 In Europe other brands have fallen through the tests also now, renault, mercedes, and I guess all brands will have to open up on their way to look-alike meeting emisssion standards. As sugested a few posts before cars are planned 5 years in advance so changing engine tactics aint that easy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted April 24, 2016 Author Share Posted April 24, 2016 yep Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
custard~SPARTA~ Posted April 24, 2016 Share Posted April 24, 2016 Haven't Mitsubishi admitted Japanese only models have been cheating? VW in Europe have already agreed with the authorities how to compensate diesel owners and it's absolutely nothing as far as I understand it, we (Europe inc UK well until we leave lol) do have very different laws to the US. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted April 25, 2016 Author Share Posted April 25, 2016 yes different, but I seriously doubt it will be nothing. for one thing... folks are going to get really irritated if they learn VW purchased the majority of the vehicles back in the USA and do nothing for customers in Europe. Also, I have hard time believing the European pollution monitoring agencies will be ignoring the blatant nature of this law violation (ie the pre-planning that went into it). This is why the hammer will be dropped here... for sure. The EPA is furious and looking for blood. Emissions Standards here have been violated several times by US automakers. Each time, the penalties were increased and the willingness to "look the other way" on business damaging fine potentials has decreased. They are trying to send the message it is not acceptable and will not be tolerated. European environmental protection agencies are not going to pretend nothing happened here. They have just not decided yet. The "reprogramming originally approved in Germany for instance is already receiving large numbers of complaints as the fuel economy on the 2.0L TDI has dropped radically and the power has also dropped on some others. This will likely end up rejected in Europe just like it was in the USA (Same Reason: you cannot change the fuel management that much without losing power, or fuel economy... or both) While I am sure it looked great on paper and why in Europe it gained quick approval as a means to quickly remove polluting engines from the highways... The performance and fuel economy of these vehicles is not going to be what VW sold the customer... in some cases it may be radically different, this is why they are buying many of them back here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted June 28, 2016 Author Share Posted June 28, 2016 Ok, the closed door meetings we talked about earlier have now occurred. This is in my opinion exactly as expected. The EPA has initialized a penalty that will force everyone to "sit up and take notice" that this type of thing is not going to be tolerated. Yet they have protected VW's core business to protect jobs. They have essentially forced VW to buy all of them back if the owners desire this, or repair them for free. They have hit them with $4 Billion in fines with 2 billion going directly into "zero emission research". Volkswagen's diesel emissions settlement will cost the German automaker $14.7 billion, a person briefed on the settlement talks said Monday, but does not resolve all the legal issues stemming from its admission that nearly a half million vehicles with 2-liter diesel engines were programmed to turn on emissions controls during government lab tests and turn them off while on the road. The figure represents the largest auto scandal settlement in U.S. history. The deal sets aside $10 billion to repair or buy back roughly 475,000 polluting Volkswagen vehicles. Full article here http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/final-tally-vw-s-diesel-emissions-settlement-15-billion-n600146 I am quite pleased with how this was done. It has sent a strong message, protected the consumer and is forcing them to put 2 billion dollars into research to produce better less polluting engines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MH6~SPARTA~ Posted June 28, 2016 Share Posted June 28, 2016 Ok, the closed door meetings we talked about earlier have now occurred. This is in my opinion exactly as expected. The EPA has initialized a penalty that will force everyone to "sit up and take notice" that this type of thing is not going to be tolerated. Yet they have protected VW's core business to protect jobs. They have essentially forced VW to buy all of them back if the owners desire this, or repair them for free. They have hit them with $4 Billion in fines with 2 billion going directly into "zero emission research". Full article here http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/final-tally-vw-s-diesel-emissions-settlement-15-billion-n600146 I am quite pleased with how this was done. It has sent a strong message, protected the consumer and is forcing them to put 2 billion dollars into research to produce better less polluting engines. Boss owns a diesel VW. We were talking about it a while back, and they did indeed offer to buy it back or repair it for free. Obviously "repairing" in this case means making it perform worse to get better emissions. Don't think he's decided, but he's probably going to just keep the one he has. If we were in California or something it'd be a different story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted September 29, 2017 Author Share Posted September 29, 2017 (edited) Interesting how this has continued to snowball as I feared in the beginning... simply reprogramming the engines in the manner necessary creates a huge list of new problems. From BBC: The diesel emissions cheating scandal will cost Volkswagen an extra $3bn (€2.5bn), because engines are proving "far more technically complex and time consuming" to adapt the company said. The additional cost, for fixing engines in the United States, takes the total bill to $30bn. Two years after the problems first emerged, Volkswagen is still struggling to put the crisis behind it. Separately Munich prosecutors made an arrest in connection with the scandal. German media reports have named the person taken into custody as Wolfgang Hatz, former board member at VW unit Porsche. However there has been no official confirmation of his identity. Mr Hatz was head of Research and Development at VW-owned Porsche and had held other roles in the VW group, including in engine development at Audi. He was suspended after the diesel emissions test-cheating was exposed. He then left the company. Last year Porsche said no evidence had been found against him. full article here: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-41442834 hindsight is 20/20 but I think in the end they are going to find it would have been cheaper to just buy them all back, crush them, and sell them back to the steel mills. Because even as these costs pile up, the work they are doing also creates lots of new "warranty liability" for them on the ones they are trying to fix. They will have to warranty for some period all of the work and the systems affected by their work... which is the engine + it's control system, transmission + it's control system, etc. etc. and they are all fairly expensive parts to be replacing free of charge if something blows up. If they had just built replacements at an average cost of $35,000 each and they needed to replace 780,000 cars... that would have cost them $27billion. That is before they get the scrap payout from all those cars.which would be significant and would further reduce that total cost.... but hindsight is 20/20. Edited September 29, 2017 by Zathrus~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forrester~SPARTA~ Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 Well my car has been adjusted, it runs fine but consumes more fuel sadly. My next car will still be a volkswagen/sister product. All other car brands have admitted on cheating too, and after studies Volkswagen still is one of the cleanest diesels of them all. Trucks are the next big issue...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted October 1, 2017 Author Share Posted October 1, 2017 yep Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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