What is Volkswagen accused of?
It's been dubbed the "diesel dupe". The German car giant has admitted cheating emissions tests in the US. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), some cars being sold in America had devices in diesel engines that could detect when they were being tested, changing the performance accordingly to improve results.
VW has had a major push to sell diesel cars in the US, backed by a huge marketing campaign trumpeting its cars' low emissions. The EPA's findings cover 482,000 cars in the US only, including the VW-manufactured Audi A3, and the VW brands Jetta, Beetle, Golf and Passat. But VW has admitted that about 11 million cars worldwide are fitted with the so-called "defeat device"....
...With VW recalling almost 500,000 cars in the US alone, it has set aside €6.5bn (£4.7bn) to cover costs. But that's unlikely to be the end of the financial impact. The EPA has the power to fine a company up to $37,500 for each vehicle that breaches standards - a maximum fine of about $18bn.
Legal action from consumers and shareholders may follow, and there is speculation that the US Justice Department will launch a criminal probe....
...However, with about 11 million VW diesel cars potentially affected, further costly recalls and refits are possible. Half of the company's sales in Europe - VW's biggest market - are for diesel cars. No wonder the carmaker's shares plunged around 30% in the first couple of days after the scandal broke - with other carmakers also seeing big falls in their stock prices.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772

False advertising and branding is fine with you then?

Edited by RedKat: 24/9/2015 08:55:49 PM

When the rules are so inane to begin with, yes.

Harris County on Tuesday set in motion a $100 million environmental lawsuit against Volkswagen, claiming emissions from 6,000 diesel cars circulating on roadways in the region have caused harm to the population. County Attorney Vince Ryan said his review of filings indicated this could be the first government suit against the car company since the executives admitted to cheating on emissions monitoring in diesel cars released since 2009.
Commissioners Court approved the suit Tuesday morning and hired three law firms to handle the matter on a contingency basis. The county plans to file the suit Tuesday afternoon, according to Robert Soard, first assistant county attorney.
The county does not have Volkswagens in its central fleet, according to Dre Dupont, who oversees the vehicles. Instead, the focus of this suit will be on the extent to which the car company and its affiliates violated Texas emissions standards, creating a public health hazard for everyone within the borders of Harris County.
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/County-wants-100-million-for-Volkswagen-fumes-6537825.php

Soooo happy about this, because of the domino effect of implications :cool: :cool: :cool:

Maybe something we don't want to dig too deep into. What if everyone's doing it?

Denial is one approach, albeit gutless.

These companies are gutless. They're lulling the ignorant sheeple into thinking their cards aren't screwing the environment.

Lets face it, if you're driving a car, you are wrecking the environment. Either get comfortable with the fact or don't drive.....

If you want to extend it to its 'zenith', breathing destroys the environment.
How do electric cars 'wreck' the environment? There are no carcinogenic particulates emitted.
The car can be charged by renewable energy.
In mining for the lithium, we could already have hydrogen powered earth movers with no carcinogenic particulates - Caterpillar made a prototype years ago. Heck, with swappable batteries, what stops an earth mover constantly working on a 1000 kilowatt hour battery (12 times the size of the Tesla P85 electric car battery which a real world test resulted in 1200km range at 35km/hr)?
And so on and so on.

VW expects to start a recall of cars affected by its emissions scandal in January, the car giant's new chief executive, Matthias Mueller, has said.
All affected cars will be fixed by the end of 2016, he told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Only a few employees have been involved in the scandal, he added in the interview.
Europe's biggest carmaker has said emissions test-cheating software is present in 11 million diesel vehicles......
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34455328

Yes, but 99% of cars sold aren't run on renewables. Current models of hybrids/electric cars typically run off a coal fired grid anyway.

So do the cars still meet emissions standards post software change?

Or was the original cheat just to make them look really good for advertising purposes?

-PB

The European Union has proposed new rules to test car emissions following the scandal involving VW diesel vehicles.
They want the tests to be carried out by independent assessors who are not connected to the motor manufacturers.
The EU also wants to be able to recall any vehicles across the region and carry out spot checks on the road.
At the moment tests are carried out at a national level and are then valid across Europe.
The new plan to test the level of nitrogen oxide being emitted from car exhausts will apply to all countries in the EU.
Laboratories that test cars would also no longer be paid directly by the manufacturers, in order to prevent conflicts of interest.....
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35420453