Volkswagen’s troubles with falsifying its emissions data for both diesel and even some gasoline powered vehicles are now well-documented, and it looks like the company may have to sell some of its prized assets in order to pay for the inevitable recalls, regulatory fines, and class-action lawsuits headed its way. The automaker has just secured a credit line of over $21 billion, according to Reuters. In order to do so, Volkswagen Group had to assure the 13 financial institutions involved throughout Europe that it’s prepared to sell whatever it needs to for collateral.
Volkswagen AG’s deepening emissions scandal may force the carmaker to raise cash by selling assets, undoing years of building an empire that includes high-performance motorcycles, heavy trucks and a world-class soccer team.
Volkswagen raised its estimate this week for the financial fallout by 2 billion euros ($2.1 billion) to a total of 8.7 billion euros. The scandal has depressed its credit rating and led to its first quarterly loss in more than 15 years. The damage is expected to rise further, with Evercore ISI estimating total costs of 29 billion euros.
While it had 27.8 billion euros in net liquidity at the end of September, the German carmaker has said it needs about 10 billion euros to keep operations going. Even after cutting costs, slashing the dividend and curbing investment, including 1.1 billion euros at its namesake VW brand, there’s a potential funding gap that Volkswagen may need to close.
Tackling the emissions crisis is Volkswagen’s first priority, and the carmaker has a “Plan B” that involves “potentially monetizing some non-core assets,”
Volkswagen’s supervisory board will meet Monday at the carmaker’s headquarters in Wolfsburg and has vowed “further measures and consequences.” The company declined to comment Friday on what it might cut.
Volkswagen has put itself in a tough spot. After cheating emissions standards, the company faces billions in fines and repair costs to bring those vehicles into spec and make peace with regulators. But a group of business owners, investors, and environmentalists has a different suggestion. The group, headlined by Elon Musk, sent an open letter to the California Air Resources Board outlining their solution. They want Volkswagen to be released from its obligation to fix cars already on the road, and instead require that the company substantially accelerate its rollout of zero-emission vehicles.
A giant sum of money thus will be wasted in attempting to fix cars that cannot all be fixed, and where the fix may be worse than the problem if the cars are crushed well before the end of their useful lives. We, the undersigned, instead encourage the CARB to show leadership in directing VW to “cure the air, not the cars” and reap multiples of what damage has been caused while strongly advancing California’s interests in transitioning to zero emission vehicles
The ongoing Dieselgate scandal has thrown Volkswagen into an administrative, public relations, and financial crisis. But while many residents of Planet Earth seem eager to shove Volkswagen under the bus, the automaker received a vote of support from 45 entrepreneurs and investors, who asked California not to punish the German automaker.
Except, their plea comes with a very, very big catch.
While many of its competitors spoke eagerly of their electrified cars, Volkswagen was busy digging in its heels, insisting that “clean diesel” was cheaper and better for the environment. The company’s former Audi chief (now head of Cadillac) called the extended-range electric Chevrolet Volt “a car for idiots”, and the brand put the brakes on its own electric car program for a while.
Oh, how things change.
In September, of course, we learned that Volkswagen engineers had equipped more than 11 million diesel vehicles with software designed to cheat on emissions tests. Why? Because those folks couldn’t figure out how to meet strict emissions regulations here in the U.S.
Now, Volkswagen has changed its tune. It’s finally, reluctantly begun to turn away from diesel and focus more energy (pun intended) on electric vehicles.
Watching Volkswagen spin out of control, you’d think electric car evangelists like Tesla CEO Elon Musk might be consumed with schadenfreude. But yesterday, Musk and 44 others signed an open letter to the chair of the California Air Resources Board, Mary Nichols, asking that Volkswagen not be required to repair diesel vehicles registered in California.
Say what? It’s true, but there’s a stinging catch:
“The VW emissions scandal is mainly the result of physics meeting fiction. In the simplest terms, we have reached the point of de miminis returns in extracting performance from a gallon of diesel while reducing pollutants, at least at reasonable cost. Unsurprisingly, and despite having the greatest research and development program in diesel engines, VW had to cheat to meet current European and U.S. standards. Meeting future tighter diesel standards will prove even more fruitless.”
The letter goes on to argue that fixing Volkswagen diesels will be expensive and impractical. Many owners won’t even bother to have their cars repaired because they know that the fix will diminish their performance.
What do Musk and Co. propose? As it turns out, they have a rather thoughtful alternative plan, which includes these four steps (emphasis ours):
1./ Release VW from its obligation to fix diesel cars already on the road in California, which represent an insignificant portion of total vehicles emissions in the State
2./ Instead, direct VW to accelerate greatly its rollout of zero emission vehicles,
3./ Require that this acceleration of the rollout of zero emissions vehicles by VW result in a 10 for 1 or greater reduction in pollutant emissions as compared to the pollution associated with the diesel fleet cheating, and achieve this over the next 5 years
4./ Require that VW invest in new manufacturing plants and/or research and development, in the amounts that they otherwise would have been fined
So, instead of fining the company, they want CARB to demand that Volkswagen invest what it might’ve spent on fines on developing electric vehicles instead.
Volkswagen Group said that German regulators approved its proposed fixes to vehicles with diesel engines that include defeat devices that released illegal amounts of nitrogen oxides (NOx) while the vehicles were being driven under normal conditions. The 1.2 and 1.0 litre engines will only require a software update, which takes “under half an hour,” according to Volkswagen Group. The 1.6 litre engines will also need to be fitted with a “flow rectifier,” which could take a mechanic “under an hour.”
Volkswagen persuaded consumers it had created a new generation of so-called clean diesel cars — until investigators discovered that phony testing concealed that its vehicles emitted up to 40 times the permitted levels of pollutants during regular use. Now Taras Grescoe writes in the NY Times public outrage over the fraud obscures the much larger issue: “clean diesel” is causing a precipitous decline in air quality for millions of city-dwellers. Monitoring sites in European cities like London, Stuttgart, Munich, Paris, Milan and Rome have reported high levels of the nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, or soot, that help to create menacing smogs.
Fortunately, Volkswagen sold only half a million of its “clean diesel” cars to the American public before the emissions scandal broke. Today, fewer than 1 percent of the passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. run on diesel fuel. Europe is now scrambling to undo the damage.
VW’s year just got a lot worse already. Not only has the US government filed a lawsuit over its emissions-cheating software: it’s also emerged that different software was written for 2.0 and 3.0 liter engines.
The Department of Justice’s complaint is that the engine management software put VW in breach of the Clean Air Act. The lawsuit also names subsidiaries Porsche and Audi.
Reuters reports that Uncle Sam will seek fines as high as US$37,500 per vehicle, per violation of the law. For the 580,000 cars cited in the action, this may equate to anywhere between US$21.75 billion and US$87 billion. The real figure is likely to be a lot less than that, though, assuming VW doesn’t clear its name.
The lawsuit covers four complaints made on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), including tampering with the vehicles’ emissions control systems and failing to report violations of the Clean Air Act.
In the 2.0 liter engines, as we already know, the software was written to detect when the car was running on a dynamometer, and calibrated the engine to comply with air pollution emission limits. Outside the lab, the engine would ramp up its output of greenhouse gas beyond those restrictions.
“This dual-calibration system results in increased NOx emissions by a factor of up to 40 times above the EPA-compliant levels, depending on the type of vehicle and drive cycle,” the complaint states.
The 3.0 liter engines also sensed dynamometer testing, but had a different response.
Volkswagen has bowed to the inevitable and proposed fitting catalytic converters to some US vehicles affected by its emissions-test-cheating engine management software scandal.
The idea was raised over the weekend by German daily Bild am Sonntag.
The fix won’t cover the whole fleet, but would clean up the 430,000 cars that use its EA 189 diesel engine, Reuters says in its summary of the German report.
Any fix still needs sign-off from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which last week released its legal hounds onto the auto giant.
The method by which Volkswagen diesel cars were able to thwart emissions tests and spew up to 40X the nitrogen oxide levels set by the Environmental Protection Agency was relatively simple. It was more likely no more than a single line of code used to detect when an emissions test was being performed and place the emissions system in an alternate mode — something as simple as a software “on/off” switch. Volkswagen AG CEO Martin Winterkorn, who stepping down as the result of his company’s scandal, has said he had no knowledge of the emissions cheat, but software dev/test audit trails are almost certain to pinpoint who embedded the code and who authorized it.
You can actually see who asked the developer to write that code,” said Nikhil Kaul, a product manager at test/dev software maker SmartBear Software. “Then if you go upstream you can see who that person’s boss was…and see if testing happened…and, if testing didn’t happen. So you can go from the bottom up to nail everyone.”
Comments:
Correction: “You can nail everyone that’s in the official audit trail.”
The people at the top that authorized it (or at least didn’t condemn it) probably never actually sent a traceable e-mail to anyone. Nor did they touch any code. Nor do they appear in any meeting minutes. These sorts of discussions tend to happen over a drink in a bar somewhere, and for good reason.
I agree, but in real life things are often not this simple. You get requirements that you aren’t sure are a good idea or the right thing to do, and you question them – but PHB assures you that it’s all been approved and cleared by the people on higher floors, and you may even contact some of them and hear their agreement. You’re a coder and now a lawyer, so…? You go ahead and write IF OBDIIPortHasSomethingConnectedToIt THEN EnterDiagnosticMode .
This case seems very egregious, but the truth of ethics in real life is often difficult to determine, and it’s being thought about by a human whose livelihood may depend on the choice.
It’s not hard to see how things like this happen. People will almost always act in (what they think is) their own best interest.
The hard part here comes from “get it in writing”.
When someone three layers of food-chain above you tells you “do this”, you don’t get to refuse until you have it in writing (unless you already have a new job lined up – and even then, don’t expect that one to go any differently).
Now, you can certainly try to get them on record – You can ask them to write up a quick spec for what they want; you can ask them to submit the Change Management request because you don’t have the authority to approve this one; you can send emails asking for clarification; and as a last resort, you can just document the change as “at the request of Boss X”. In the real world, however, we’ve all dealt with people who refuse to do anything except by phone or in person.
And at that point, it becomes your word against theirs. Guess who can afford the better lawyer? And even that assumes it completely blows up – If it remains an internal matter, you won’t even get the chance to present your side of the situation, just pack your belongings up and GTFO.
A software development audit trail will likely point to who authorized the emissions-cheating algorithm
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Volkswagen was able to cheat emissions tests for half a million of its U.S.-sold cars. The software that enabled cars to thwart emissions tests is in as many as 11 million other vehicles, Volkswagen admitted Tuesday.
In a public statement on Wednesday evening, Volkswagen AG said that its top executives had been briefed on issues relating to the diesel emissions scandal prior to the time that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the company a Notice of Violation last fall. Still, the company maintains that its CEO may not have understood the gravity of the situation.
VW Group has previously been cagey about whether top executives knew that engineers had been installing illegal defeat devices in diesel vehicles. (The term “defeat device” here refers to lines of code in the engine management software.) So-called defeat devices suppress the car’s emissions control system when it’s being driven normally, allowing the system to work when the car is being tested in a lab. This setup resulted in diesel Volkswagens, Audis, and Porsches releasing many times the allowed limit of NOx emissions every time the car got on the road.
If top executives knew about the defeat devices, they could face additional lawsuits from shareholders on top of the billions in fines that the EPA and the Department of Justice have sued VW Group for. The company also must account for the cost to fix or buy back the affected cars.
Volkswagen wants to buy back the 500,000 or so diesel cars that it programmed to cheat on US emissions test, or repair them and compensate owners for their trouble.
Under a plan that Reuters says VW is expected to present to a federal judge on Thursday, the German automaker will offer a cash payment to owners who return their cars, or make the modifications needed to ensure the cars meet emissions standards. Anyone who opts to sell back a car will be compensated for the value of the car before the scandal came to light in September, plus an unspecified bonus.
Between 2008 and 2015, Volkswagen sold 11 million cars containing software that detected when they were being tested for emissions compliance, and changed the engine settings to meet standards. The rest of the time, the cars went about spewing up to 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxides (NOx), which is linked to asthma and other respiratory problems.
It remains to be seen how VW will repair any vehicles that customers aren’t willing to unload, but the known options aren’t tantalizing. VW could tweak the software so the car delivers the emissions recorded during testing, but that would hurt fuel economy and performance. It could add a urea tank to the car, effectively eliminating NOx emissions. Doing so is expensive, though
Volkswagen of America sales dropped 24.7 percent in November compared to the same month in 2014, the automaker announced today. The drop, from 31,725 to 23,882 cars, is the latest blow in the ongoing disaster that is VW’s diesel scandal.
Meanwhile, the auto industry as a whole is on pace for record sales in November, according to the Detroit Free Press.
This is the first clear sign of the undoubtedly serious damage VW will face in the US. (In October, sales actually rose .24 percent over 2014.) November sales of the Golf and Passat dropped by more than 60 percent, Beetle coupe sales fell nearly 50 percent. All three vehicles were previously available with the dastardly 2-liter TDI engine.
More discoveries in the emission – the minister revealed 16 different car brands
Germany irregularities have been found 16 car brand release, announces the Minister of Transport Alexander Dobrindt.
Problems have been observed, according to the Minister on the following brands: Volkswagen, Audi, Mercedes, Opel, Porsche, Renault, Alfa Romeo, Chevrolet, Dacia, Fiat, Hyundai, Jaguar, Jeep, Land Rover, Nissan and Suzuki
Volkswagen will spend more than $15 billion to atone for its diesel cheating scandal in the United States, two thirds of which will go to buying back cars from customers, Bloomberg reports.
Under the settlement, which VW will likely file tomorrow in a San Francisco court, the automaker will pay $2.7 billion in fines to the EPA and California Air Resources Board, and another $2 billion to support zero emission vehicle development, according to Reuters.
This marks the latest and most substantial blow to the deceitful automaker, which rigged more than 10 million diesel vehicles to pass emissions tests between 2009 and 2015. While on the road, the cars spewed up to 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxide, a pollutant linked to asthma.
Under this deal, VW will offer to buy back cars from American customers at their pre-scandal value, with a bonus payment of up to $10,000 to smooth things over.
Volkswagen cheated, got caught, and is now ready to make amends. Or, as drivers of the company’s so-called clean diesels can think of it: jackpot.
Under a proposed $15 billion settlement filed today, VW will buy back or fix about 475,000 of the diesel-powered cars it programmed to cheat on emissions tests and sold in the US between 2009 and 2015. If you own, lease, or have owned or leased one of those definitely not clean diesels, here’s how to get your restitution.
the proposed settlement, which concerns 2.0-liter diesels—VW hasn’t yet figured out what to do with the 3.0-liter cars that also cheated.
If Breyer gives the green light, you can start cashing in. First off, make sure your car’s covered by punching your vehicle identification number into VW’s Holy Moses We Messed Up microsite.
If you’re leasing, VW will terminate the deal without a fee (doy). If you’re an owner, the automaker will buy back your car at its pre-scandal value, based on options and mileage. Either way, you get a cash payment as an apology for the whole scamming-you-and-destroying-the-atmosphere thing.
For owners, that’ll be somewhere between $5,100 and $10,000 (to be exact, $2,986.73 plus 20 percent of your car’s value).
If you sold your dastardly diesel or bought one off someone else, the two of you will split the cash payment down the middle.
You don’t have to sell the car back right away, but you do have to identify yourself as the car’s owner by September 16, 2016.
Say you forgive your Jetta for cheating on you: You can have VW modify the car so that it meets all emissions regulations, if the EPA and California’s Air Resources Board approve the fix. If that happens at all, it might not be until May 2018.
If you opt out of this settlement, you can’t sell your car back to VW and you don’t get the pile of Benjamins, but you’re still eligible to get your car fixed for free.
Volkswagen’s diesel scandal looks set to continue. The German magazine Bild , the United States sold in 3.0-liter engines would be found three software that have not been approved.
Bild reports that the engines have been built by Audi, which is part of the Volkswagen Group. Software related to the regulatory system of emissions.
Volkswagen was forced to problems with engine control software last year. The company was told in June to have used buybacks of vehicles dollars for more than 15 billion,
It looks like Volkswagen’s diesel scandal could keep rolling as reports claim that the automaker has three hidden software programs in its 3.0-liter engines. Concerns about the German car manufacturers’ 2.0-liter engines could soon reach a conclusion, but the discovery of the hidden software has thrown the future of 3.0-liter diesels into uncertainty.
It looks like Volkswagen’s diesel scandal could keep rolling as reports claim that the automaker has three hidden software programs in its 3.0-liter engines.
Concerns about the German car manufacturers’ 2.0-liter engines could soon reach a conclusion, but the discovery of the hidden software has thrown the future of 3.0-liter diesels into uncertainty.
That secret software in Volkswagen’s 3.0-liter diesels can turn off the vehicles’ emissions controls, Reuters reports, citing the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag. The emissions control system allegedly shuts off after 22 minutes, when most emissions tests take about 20.
If this software does exist, it likely resides in all 3.0-liter diesels that Volkswagen sells in the US. This includes the Audi Q7, Volkswagen Touareg and Porsche Cayenne SUVs. Approximately 85,000 of these cars are roaming around the US
U.S. authorities have found three unapproved software programs in 3.0 liter diesel engines made by Volkswagen’s (VOWG_p.DE) Audi (NSUG.DE) unit, German weekly Bild am Sonntag reported, without saying where it had obtained the information.
The software allowed the turbocharged direct injection (TDI) engines used in Audi’s Q7, Porsche’s Cayenne and VW’s Touareg models to shut down emissions control systems after about 22 minutes, the paper said. Official methods to measure emissions usually last about 20 minutes, it added.
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Researchers find cryptographic keys shared by millions of Volkswagen vehicles can allow them clone key fobs using cheap radio hardware
Volkswagen didn’t immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment, but the researchers write in their paper that VW acknowledged the vulnerabilities they found. NXP, the semiconductor company that sells chips using the vulnerable HiTag2 crypto system to carmakers, says that it’s been recommending customers upgrade to newer schemes for years. “[HiTag2] is a legacy security algorithm, introduced 18 years ago,”
Plenty of evidence suggests that sort of digitally enabled car theft is already occurring.
[James Liang], an engineer at Volkswagen for 33 years, plead guilty today to conspiracy. He was an engineer involved in delivering Diesel vehicles to market which could detect an emissions test scenario and perform differently from normal operation in order to pass US emission standards.
According to information in the indictment, none of this happened by mistake (as we suspected). There was a team responsible for developing a mode that would detect a test and pass inspection after the company discovered the engine could not otherwise pass. It’s not hard to see the motivation behind this — think of the sunk cost in developing an engine design. The team responsible for cheating the tests went so far as to push software updates in 2014 which made the cheat better, and lying about the existence of these software “features” when questioned by authorities (again, according to the indictment).
A Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) engineer pleaded guilty on Friday to helping the German automaker evade U.S. emission standards, and his lawyer said he would cooperate with federal authorities in their criminal probe.
James Liang, who has worked for VW since 1983 and was part of a team of engineers who developed a diesel engine, was charged with conspiring to commit wire fraud and violating U.S. clean air laws. He is the first person to face criminal charges in connection with the diesel emissions cheating case.
“I knew that Volkswagen did not disclose the defeat device to U.S. regulators,” Liang said in court. His lawyer, Daniel Nixon, said after the hearing that his client was “very remorseful.”
Liang could face up to five years in prison but may get a much lighter sentence if the government finds he provided substantial assistance.
VW has already agreed to spend up to $16.5 billion to address environmental, state and owner claims in the United States. It still faces billions in potential fines and must resolve the fate of 85,000 polluting 3.0-liter vehicles.
Liang was one of the engineers in Wolfsburg, Germany, directly involved in developing the defeat device for the Volkswagen Jetta in 2006, according to the indictment.
Volkswagen Group threatens to choke on exhaust gasses. Two German magazines – Bild am Sonntag and the Süddeutsche Zeitung – tell us that in Audi have been found in the software, which is tamper-proof exhaust measurement tests.
California’s CARB Organization (California Air Resources Board) has found the Audi to the software, which reduces engine emissions, if it detects that the steering wheel is turned. That is normal where the emissions are much higher than the test bench at the inspection station.
VW Group is in late November are going to court in San Francisco. There figuring out what to do with them 85 thousand years 2009-2015 Audi, for Porsche and VW, in which emissions from 3 liter engines in excess of allowable limits 9 times.
In response to a report via Bild am Sonntag last week, which found a new type of defeat device hidden inside an Audi automatic transmission, Volkswagen finally came around to admitting the findings. “Adaptive shift programs can lead to incorrect and non-reproducible results” in emissions tests, VW told Reuters on Sunday. CNET reports:
Software in the AL 551 automatic transmission may detect testing conditions and shift in a way that minimizes emissions, only to act “normally” out on the road. Much like Dieselgate’s defeat device, that leads to higher-than-imagined pollution, which could be in excess of legal limits. Audi’s AL 551 can be found in both gas and diesel vehicles, including the A6, A8 and Q5.
Audi cars with automatic transmissions have technology capable of distorting emissions when they are tested, Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) said, as its luxury flagship is battling allegations over a reported discovery of a new cheat software device.
Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper said a week ago that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) had this summer discovered cheating software in an older Audi model, which is unrelated to the device that triggered last year’s diesel emissions test-cheating scandal at parent VW.
The software in CARB’s discovery lowered carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by detecting whether a car’s steering wheel was turned as it would be when driving on a road and was used in diesel and petrol models in Europe for years, Bild had said.
The EPA and CARB are currently focused on reaching agreement with VW on how to resolve 85,000 3.0 liter 2009-2015 diesel Audi, Porsche, and VW vehicles that emit up to nine times legally allowable pollution levels ahead of a Nov. 30 court hearing in San Francisco.
Last week, a German newspaper reported that Audi was hiding emissions-cheating software in its automatic transmissions. I don’t know why it took a whole week, but Volkswagen finally came around to admitting as much.
“Adaptive shift programs can lead to incorrect and non-reproducible results” in emissions tests, Volkswagen told Reuters on Sunday. Software in the AL 551 automatic transmission may detect testing conditions and shift in a way that minimizes emissions, only to act “normally” out on the road. Much like Dieselgate’s defeat device, that leads to higher-than-imagined pollution, which could be in excess of legal limits.
The European Commission has begun legal action against seven member states over emissions cheating in the “dieselgate” scandal.
The Commission is frustrated with how national authorities have handled the issue, which began last year when Volkswagen admitted to emissions ‘discrepancies’ in engines fitted in 11 million vehicles.
Volkswagen’s admission came after the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accused it of breaching US laws by deploying software in some of its vehicles that allowed it to “cheat” obligations on emissions levels.
The Commission has begun proceedings against the UK, Germany, Greece, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Spain for not acting on the evidence uncovered by investigations, or for failure to bring in laws punishing environmental breaches.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has arrested a Volkswagen executive who faces charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States
After a study by West Virginia University first raised questions over Volkswagen’s diesel motors in early 2014, Mr. Schmidt played a central role in trying to convince regulators that excess emissions were caused by technical problems rather than by deliberate cheating. Much of the data presented to regulators was fabricated, officials of the California Air Resources Board have said.
In an interesting turn of events last week in a German court, evidence has materialized that engineers were ordered to cheat emissions testing when developing automotive parts.
Last Tuesday, Ulrich Weiß brought forward a document that alleges Audi Board of Director members were involved in ordering a cheat for diesel emissions. Weiß was the head of engine development for Audi, suspended in November of 2015 but continued to draw more than half a million dollars in salary before being fired after prior to last week’s court testimony.
Volkswagen Group is the parent company of Audi and this all seems to have happened while the VW diesel emissions testing scandal we’ve covered since 2015 was beginning to come to light. Weiß testified that he was asked to design a method of getting around strict emissions standards in Hong Kong even though Audi knew their diesel engines weren’t capable of doing so legitimately.
A document, locked up in the safe of an Audi engineer for years, could be explosive enough to blow away Audi CEO Rupert Stadler. It could destroy Audi’s fortunes in China, and with that a major source of Volkswagen’s cash. In a German court, the document was pulled out of the safe yesterday, to prove that Stadler ordered Audi engineers to cheat regulators in Hong Kong at a time when regulators in America were tracking down the dieselgate cheat of the century.
The dangerous document was presented in a German labor court by Audi engineer Ulrich Weiß, one of the company’s leading diesel developers. Weiß was suspended in November 2015. He continued drawing a 450,000 Euro ($473,000) annual salary until exactly last week, when he was fired, along with three other Audi engineers.
Yesterday, Audi found itself under new high-caliber fire. Weiß produced a document signed by Audi’s head of powertrain development Dr. Thomas Heiduk. It seemed to document that Audi board members Rupert Stadler (CEO), Ulrich Hackenberg (R&D), Werner Zimmermann (Quality Assurance), and Michael Neumayer (Product Management) “ordered a cheat,” wrote BILD-reporter Michael Manske, who covered the proceedings.
The order from above ended a heated debate.
Weiß’s attorney Hans-Georg Kauffeld said in court that his client locked-up the paper in his safe as insurance, and that he told his people to resist the order. Whether Hong Kong regulators were later fooled or not, nobody could say in court for sure.
Audi accused Weiß in court of destroying evidence, and of not properly informing the board. Weiß denied the allegations.
If the matter can’t be contained in the Mannheim court, it could do more harm than just shorten the career of Stadler, who has been under fire for many months now. Audi is the leading premium brand in China, and it has been Volkswagen’s biggest money maker. In January, Audi’s sales in China slumped 35% year-on-year amid a heated dispute with Audi’s dealers. Last week, Audi’s China dealers demanded $4 billion to cover losses.
Despite the intrigue, collusion, and court-room drama of a best-selling mystery novel, there is little echo in the German press.
Researchers analyzing the emissions defeat devices found in automobiles made by the Volkswagen Group and Chrysler Fiat Automobiles have developed a way to test software for misbehavior, but they caution that lack of visibility into programming code could pose a challenge for regulators.
In 2015, the US Environmental Protection Agency charged Volkswagen AG and its subsidiaries, Audi AG and Volkswagen Group of America, with violating the Clean Air Act. The agency said the company had used a “defeat device” to alter diesel engine emissions on vehicles over the span of several years during regulatory testing.
Volkswagen has acknowledged that over 11 million vehicles worldwide carried its emissions cheating software.
The scandal claimed the company’s CEO at the time, Martin Winterkorn, and is expected to cost the company at least $18.3 billion. In April, a US judge hit the company with a $2.8 billion criminal fine.
The German government has accused Audi of cheating emissions tests with its top-end models, marking the first time the company has been accused of such wrongdoing in its home country. Reuters reports:
The German Transport Ministry said it has asked Volkswagen’s (VOWG_p.DE) luxury division to recall around 24,000 A7 and A8 models built between 2009 and 2013, about half of which were sold in Germany. The affected Audi models with so-called Euro-5 emission standards emit about twice the legal limit of nitrogen oxides when the steering wheel is turned more than 15 degrees, the ministry said.
Audi’s (NSUG.DE) emissions scandal flared up again on Thursday after the German government accused the carmaker of cheating emissions tests with its top-end models, the first time Audi has been accused of such wrongdoing in its home country.
The German Transport Ministry said it has asked Volkswagen’s (VOWG_p.DE) luxury division to recall around 24,000 A7 and A8 models built between 2009 and 2013, about half of which were sold in Germany.
The affected Audi models with so-called Euro-5 emission standards emit about twice the legal limit of nitrogen oxides when the steering wheel is turned more than 15 degrees, the ministry said.
The engineer responsible for Dieselgate has been sentenced to 40 months in prison. There are two takeaways from this: 1) The Nuremberg Defense doesn’t work. 2) Don’t build a business plan around breaking the law, despite what the libertarian hellscape of Hacker News tells you.
WASHINGTON/DETROIT (Reuters) – A federal judge in Detroit sentenced former engineer James Liang to 40 months in prison on Friday for his role in Volkswagen AG’s (VOWG_p.DE) multiyear scheme to sell diesel cars that generated more pollution than U.S. clean air rules allowed.
Prosecutors last week recommended that Liang, 63, receive a three-year prison sentence, reflecting credit for his months of cooperation with the U.S. investigation of Volkswagen’s diesel emissions fraud.
Volkswagen pleaded guilty in March to three felony charges under an agreement with prosecutors to resolve the U.S. criminal probe of the company itself. It agreed to spend as much as $25 billion in the United States to resolve claims from owners and regulators and offered to buy back about 500,000 vehicles.
In 2014, as evidence mounted about the harmful effects of diesel exhaust on human health, scientists in an Albuquerque laboratory conducted an unusual experiment: Ten monkeys squatted in airtight chambers, watching cartoons for entertainment as they inhaled fumes from a diesel Volkswagen Beetle.
Dec. 10, 2017
The chief executive of Volkswagen said on Sunday that the German government should consider phasing out the subsidies that encourage Europeans to buy diesel cars, a startling change of position by the company largely responsible for diesel’s popularity in Europe.
“We should question the logic and purpose of diesel subsidies,”
Volkswagen secured the disastrous results of exhaust tests of exhaust gases
The car manufacturer attempted to prove that the inhalation of diesel cars in its cars caused lower health risks than before but the result was the opposite.
German car wreck financed unethical animal experiments and buried their results because they did not like it.
Even using the scam equipment did not help.
Testing was revealed last week.
Car manufacturer Volkswagen secreted the results of animal testing they did, as they did not like it. The EUGT test laboratory in the United States conducted a test in 2014.
The monkeys were exposed to exhaust gases for four hours, after which blood tests were taken and their respiratory organs were inspected.
German magazine Bild has received research materials and, according to them, VW’s inhaled monkeys suffer more. The result was the opposite of what VW had hoped for and the matter was buried.
Volkswagen claimed earlier that researchers never managed to publish the entire research.
The tests were funded by three German automobile manufacturers, namely Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW. Volkswagen was responsible for apes research.
The knowledge of monkey testing caused tremendous indignation in Germany and worldwide when it came to the public for the first time last week. It then became apparent that EUGT also made human experiments with emissions. The EUGT was closed last year.
Edward Taylor / Reuters:
BMW to recall 11,700 cars, says it installed wrong engine management software in some cars; move comes after reports of Volkswagen-like emissions manipulation
German carmaker BMW (BMWG.DE) said on Friday it would recall 11,700 cars to fix their engine management software after it discovered that the wrong programming had been installed on its luxury 5- and 7-Series models.
BMW issued the statement after a report in news weekly Der Spiegel suggested it had installed software that manipulated emissions of harmful gases such as nitrogen oxide
Competitor Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) reached a multi-billion-dollar U.S. settlement after admitting installing so-called “defeat devices” on its diesel models designed to game emissions tests.
Volkswagen’s CEO is out following diesel scandal
Brian Heater
@bheater / 8 hours ago
Porsche SE Announces Financial Results For 2016
Matthias Müller is out as Volkswagen CEO, amid a diesel emissions scandal that shook the world’s largest car maker. The company confirmed the move today, naming Brand Chief Herbert Diess to the top job in his stead.
Müller had only been in the top role for three years, and while the chief executive was never charged in the scandal, many in the industry believe that he didn’t impose changes quickly enough after information came to light.
This time last year, the company was hit with a $2.8 billion penalty in the U.S., bringing its costs for the scandal up to around $30 billion,
A year and change after the car maker pleaded guilty to obstructing investigations and importing cars under false pretenses, Volkswagen’s former CEO Martin Winterkorn has been charged with conspiracy and wire fraud in a U.S. court. All of this stems from a diesel emissions scandal that ultimately found VW paying $4.3 billion in penalties.
Winterkorn stepped down from his role at Volkswagen in September of 2015, only a matter of days after the German car maker confessed to outfitting 11 million cars with a device designed to cheat at emissions testing.
The latest lapse of the Diesel Show: Mercedes-Benz has to repair 774,000 cars
DIESELSKANDAAL The German authorities ordered Daimler to inspect and, if necessary, repair 774,000 Mercedes-Benz diesel powered throughout Europe.
According to Bloomberg, a massive repair reminder is based on suspicions that the manufacturer has installed software misleading for Mercedes-Benz.
This was a great deal to be done by the German Vehicle Agency KBA and it was targeted at three C-Class sedan, Vito-type vans and a GLC-class street hatch
Last year, Daimler voluntarily called for three million types of car-type inspections
Munich prosecutors said Rupert Stadler was being detained due to fears he might hinder an ongoing investigation into the scandal.
The news has plunged Volkswagen into a leadership crisis.
Porsche will no longer make diesel-powered vehicles, opting instead to invest more money into electric and hybrid technology, the company said over the weekend.
waning demand combined with the fallout from the Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal has accelerated Porsche’s move away from diesel. Now it’s ditching diesel for good.
Automaker Daimler AG and subsidiary Mercedes-Benz USA have agreed to pay $1.5 billion to resolve allegations they cheated on emissions tests, officials said Monday. The U.S. Department of Justice, Environmental Protection Agency and the California attorney general’s office said Daimler violated environmental laws by using so-called “defeat device software” to circumvent emissions testing. In doing so, the companies sold roughly 250,000 cars and vans between 2009 and 2016 with diesel engines that didn’t meet state and federal standards. The settlement, which includes civil penalties and still awaits court approval in Washington, will require Daimler to fix the already sold vehicles.
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92 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
VW may have to sell Lamborghini, Bugatti, Ducati to cover emissions scandal costs
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/218932-vw-may-have-to-sell-bugatti-lamborghini-ducati-to-cover-emissions-scandal-costs
Volkswagen’s troubles with falsifying its emissions data for both diesel and even some gasoline powered vehicles are now well-documented, and it looks like the company may have to sell some of its prized assets in order to pay for the inevitable recalls, regulatory fines, and class-action lawsuits headed its way. The automaker has just secured a credit line of over $21 billion, according to Reuters. In order to do so, Volkswagen Group had to assure the 13 financial institutions involved throughout Europe that it’s prepared to sell whatever it needs to for collateral.
Report: VW Could Sell Bentley, Lamborghini, Ducati to Fund Diesel Woes
http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/news/a27519/vw-sell-bentley-lamborghini-ducati-diesel-emissions/
To secure a $21 billion credit line covering recalls and lawsuits, Volkswagen has to be ready to sell some of its many assets.
Tomi Engdahl says:
VW Could Sell Ducati, Audi Shares If Scandal Deepens Cash Needs
Christoph Rauwald
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-06/vw-could-sell-ducati-audi-shares-if-scandal-deepens-cash-needs
Volkswagen AG’s deepening emissions scandal may force the carmaker to raise cash by selling assets, undoing years of building an empire that includes high-performance motorcycles, heavy trucks and a world-class soccer team.
Volkswagen raised its estimate this week for the financial fallout by 2 billion euros ($2.1 billion) to a total of 8.7 billion euros. The scandal has depressed its credit rating and led to its first quarterly loss in more than 15 years. The damage is expected to rise further, with Evercore ISI estimating total costs of 29 billion euros.
While it had 27.8 billion euros in net liquidity at the end of September, the German carmaker has said it needs about 10 billion euros to keep operations going. Even after cutting costs, slashing the dividend and curbing investment, including 1.1 billion euros at its namesake VW brand, there’s a potential funding gap that Volkswagen may need to close.
Tackling the emissions crisis is Volkswagen’s first priority, and the carmaker has a “Plan B” that involves “potentially monetizing some non-core assets,”
Volkswagen’s supervisory board will meet Monday at the carmaker’s headquarters in Wolfsburg and has vowed “further measures and consequences.” The company declined to comment Friday on what it might cut.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Musk, Others Want Volkswagen To Go Electric Instead of Fixing Diesels
http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/12/20/0050210/musk-others-want-volkswagen-to-go-electric-instead-of-fixing-diesels
Volkswagen has put itself in a tough spot. After cheating emissions standards, the company faces billions in fines and repair costs to bring those vehicles into spec and make peace with regulators. But a group of business owners, investors, and environmentalists has a different suggestion. The group, headlined by Elon Musk, sent an open letter to the California Air Resources Board outlining their solution. They want Volkswagen to be released from its obligation to fix cars already on the road, and instead require that the company substantially accelerate its rollout of zero-emission vehicles.
An Open Letter to California Air Resources Board Chairman Mary Nichols
http://www.takepart.com/open-letter-to-california-air-resources-board-chairman-mary-nichols
A giant sum of money thus will be wasted in attempting to fix cars that cannot all be fixed, and where the fix may be worse than the problem if the cars are crushed well before the end of their useful lives. We, the undersigned, instead encourage the CARB to show leadership in directing VW to “cure the air, not the cars” and reap multiples of what damage has been caused while strongly advancing California’s interests in transitioning to zero emission vehicles
Tomi Engdahl says:
Elon Musk Wants California To Forgive Volkswagen For Dieselgate (But There’s A Very Big Catch)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/cars/elon-musk-wants-california-to-forgive-volkswagen-for-dieselgate-but-theres-a-very-big-catch/2015/12/18/86d47caa-a5b4-11e5-8318-bd8caed8c588_story.html
The ongoing Dieselgate scandal has thrown Volkswagen into an administrative, public relations, and financial crisis. But while many residents of Planet Earth seem eager to shove Volkswagen under the bus, the automaker received a vote of support from 45 entrepreneurs and investors, who asked California not to punish the German automaker.
Except, their plea comes with a very, very big catch.
While many of its competitors spoke eagerly of their electrified cars, Volkswagen was busy digging in its heels, insisting that “clean diesel” was cheaper and better for the environment. The company’s former Audi chief (now head of Cadillac) called the extended-range electric Chevrolet Volt “a car for idiots”, and the brand put the brakes on its own electric car program for a while.
Oh, how things change.
In September, of course, we learned that Volkswagen engineers had equipped more than 11 million diesel vehicles with software designed to cheat on emissions tests. Why? Because those folks couldn’t figure out how to meet strict emissions regulations here in the U.S.
Now, Volkswagen has changed its tune. It’s finally, reluctantly begun to turn away from diesel and focus more energy (pun intended) on electric vehicles.
Watching Volkswagen spin out of control, you’d think electric car evangelists like Tesla CEO Elon Musk might be consumed with schadenfreude. But yesterday, Musk and 44 others signed an open letter to the chair of the California Air Resources Board, Mary Nichols, asking that Volkswagen not be required to repair diesel vehicles registered in California.
Say what? It’s true, but there’s a stinging catch:
“The VW emissions scandal is mainly the result of physics meeting fiction. In the simplest terms, we have reached the point of de miminis returns in extracting performance from a gallon of diesel while reducing pollutants, at least at reasonable cost. Unsurprisingly, and despite having the greatest research and development program in diesel engines, VW had to cheat to meet current European and U.S. standards. Meeting future tighter diesel standards will prove even more fruitless.”
The letter goes on to argue that fixing Volkswagen diesels will be expensive and impractical. Many owners won’t even bother to have their cars repaired because they know that the fix will diminish their performance.
What do Musk and Co. propose? As it turns out, they have a rather thoughtful alternative plan, which includes these four steps (emphasis ours):
1./ Release VW from its obligation to fix diesel cars already on the road in California, which represent an insignificant portion of total vehicles emissions in the State
2./ Instead, direct VW to accelerate greatly its rollout of zero emission vehicles,
3./ Require that this acceleration of the rollout of zero emissions vehicles by VW result in a 10 for 1 or greater reduction in pollutant emissions as compared to the pollution associated with the diesel fleet cheating, and achieve this over the next 5 years
4./ Require that VW invest in new manufacturing plants and/or research and development, in the amounts that they otherwise would have been fined
So, instead of fining the company, they want CARB to demand that Volkswagen invest what it might’ve spent on fines on developing electric vehicles instead.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Volkswagen Group said that German regulators approved its proposed fixes to vehicles with diesel engines that include defeat devices that released illegal amounts of nitrogen oxides (NOx) while the vehicles were being driven under normal conditions. The 1.2 and 1.0 litre engines will only require a software update, which takes “under half an hour,” according to Volkswagen Group. The 1.6 litre engines will also need to be fitted with a “flow rectifier,” which could take a mechanic “under an hour.”
Source: http://arstechnica.co.uk/cars/2015/12/germany-approves-30-minute-software-update-fix-for-cheating-volkswagen-diesels/
More: http://arstechnica.co.uk/cars/2015/12/germany-approves-30-minute-software-update-fix-for-cheating-volkswagen-diesels/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Volkswagen, Johnson & Johnson, and Corporate Responsibility – The Atlantic
http://www.epanorama.net/newepa/2015/12/25/volkswagen-johnson-johnson-and-corporate-responsibility-the-atlantic/
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/what-was-volkswagen-thinking/419127/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Dirty Truth About ‘Clean Diesel’
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/01/04/147219/the-dirty-truth-about-clean-diesel?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Volkswagen persuaded consumers it had created a new generation of so-called clean diesel cars — until investigators discovered that phony testing concealed that its vehicles emitted up to 40 times the permitted levels of pollutants during regular use. Now Taras Grescoe writes in the NY Times public outrage over the fraud obscures the much larger issue: “clean diesel” is causing a precipitous decline in air quality for millions of city-dwellers. Monitoring sites in European cities like London, Stuttgart, Munich, Paris, Milan and Rome have reported high levels of the nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, or soot, that help to create menacing smogs.
Fortunately, Volkswagen sold only half a million of its “clean diesel” cars to the American public before the emissions scandal broke. Today, fewer than 1 percent of the passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. run on diesel fuel. Europe is now scrambling to undo the damage.
The Dirty Truth About ‘Clean Diesel’
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/opinion/sunday/the-dirty-truth-about-clean-diesel.html?_r=0
Tomi Engdahl says:
Happy new year, VW: Uncle Sam sues over engine cheatware
Automaker menaced by threat of billion-dollar fines
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/05/us_slings_volkswagen_giant_sueball/
VW’s year just got a lot worse already. Not only has the US government filed a lawsuit over its emissions-cheating software: it’s also emerged that different software was written for 2.0 and 3.0 liter engines.
The Department of Justice’s complaint is that the engine management software put VW in breach of the Clean Air Act. The lawsuit also names subsidiaries Porsche and Audi.
Reuters reports that Uncle Sam will seek fines as high as US$37,500 per vehicle, per violation of the law. For the 580,000 cars cited in the action, this may equate to anywhere between US$21.75 billion and US$87 billion. The real figure is likely to be a lot less than that, though, assuming VW doesn’t clear its name.
The lawsuit covers four complaints made on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), including tampering with the vehicles’ emissions control systems and failing to report violations of the Clean Air Act.
In the 2.0 liter engines, as we already know, the software was written to detect when the car was running on a dynamometer, and calibrated the engine to comply with air pollution emission limits. Outside the lab, the engine would ramp up its output of greenhouse gas beyond those restrictions.
“This dual-calibration system results in increased NOx emissions by a factor of up to 40 times above the EPA-compliant levels, depending on the type of vehicle and drive cycle,” the complaint states.
The 3.0 liter engines also sensed dynamometer testing, but had a different response.
Tomi Engdahl says:
VW floats catalytic converter as fix for fibbing diesels
When ‘turn it off and turn it back on again’ won’t do
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/10/vw_floats_catalytic_converter_as_fix_for_emissioncheating_diesels/
Volkswagen has bowed to the inevitable and proposed fitting catalytic converters to some US vehicles affected by its emissions-test-cheating engine management software scandal.
The idea was raised over the weekend by German daily Bild am Sonntag.
The fix won’t cover the whole fleet, but would clean up the 430,000 cars that use its EA 189 diesel engine, Reuters says in its summary of the German report.
Any fix still needs sign-off from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which last week released its legal hounds onto the auto giant.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Did Volkswagen Cheat Emissions Tests, and Who Authorized It?
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/15/09/24/1423225/how-did-volkswagen-cheat-emissions-tests-and-who-authorized-it?sdsrc=popbyskid
The method by which Volkswagen diesel cars were able to thwart emissions tests and spew up to 40X the nitrogen oxide levels set by the Environmental Protection Agency was relatively simple. It was more likely no more than a single line of code used to detect when an emissions test was being performed and place the emissions system in an alternate mode — something as simple as a software “on/off” switch. Volkswagen AG CEO Martin Winterkorn, who stepping down as the result of his company’s scandal, has said he had no knowledge of the emissions cheat, but software dev/test audit trails are almost certain to pinpoint who embedded the code and who authorized it.
You can actually see who asked the developer to write that code,” said Nikhil Kaul, a product manager at test/dev software maker SmartBear Software. “Then if you go upstream you can see who that person’s boss was…and see if testing happened…and, if testing didn’t happen. So you can go from the bottom up to nail everyone.”
Comments:
Correction: “You can nail everyone that’s in the official audit trail.”
The people at the top that authorized it (or at least didn’t condemn it) probably never actually sent a traceable e-mail to anyone. Nor did they touch any code. Nor do they appear in any meeting minutes. These sorts of discussions tend to happen over a drink in a bar somewhere, and for good reason.
I agree, but in real life things are often not this simple. You get requirements that you aren’t sure are a good idea or the right thing to do, and you question them – but PHB assures you that it’s all been approved and cleared by the people on higher floors, and you may even contact some of them and hear their agreement. You’re a coder and now a lawyer, so…? You go ahead and write IF OBDIIPortHasSomethingConnectedToIt THEN EnterDiagnosticMode .
This case seems very egregious, but the truth of ethics in real life is often difficult to determine, and it’s being thought about by a human whose livelihood may depend on the choice.
It’s not hard to see how things like this happen. People will almost always act in (what they think is) their own best interest.
The hard part here comes from “get it in writing”.
When someone three layers of food-chain above you tells you “do this”, you don’t get to refuse until you have it in writing (unless you already have a new job lined up – and even then, don’t expect that one to go any differently).
Now, you can certainly try to get them on record – You can ask them to write up a quick spec for what they want; you can ask them to submit the Change Management request because you don’t have the authority to approve this one; you can send emails asking for clarification; and as a last resort, you can just document the change as “at the request of Boss X”. In the real world, however, we’ve all dealt with people who refuse to do anything except by phone or in person.
And at that point, it becomes your word against theirs. Guess who can afford the better lawyer? And even that assumes it completely blows up – If it remains an internal matter, you won’t even get the chance to present your side of the situation, just pack your belongings up and GTFO.
A diesel whodunit: How software let VW cheat on emissions
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2985283/telematics/a-diesel-whodunit-how-software-let-vw-cheat-on-emissions.html
A software development audit trail will likely point to who authorized the emissions-cheating algorithm
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Volkswagen was able to cheat emissions tests for half a million of its U.S.-sold cars. The software that enabled cars to thwart emissions tests is in as many as 11 million other vehicles, Volkswagen admitted Tuesday.
Tomi Engdahl says:
It seems that some tire manufacturers have also cheated on some tests:
http://www.hs.fi/talous/a1456464046554
http://www.hs.fi/talous/a1456542106694
Tomi Engdahl says:
Volkswagen details what top management knew leading up to emissions revelations
But the extent to which the CEO understood the gravity of the situation is disputed.
http://arstechnica.co.uk/cars/2016/03/volkswagen-says-ceo-was-in-fact-briefed-about-emissions-issues-in-2014/
In a public statement on Wednesday evening, Volkswagen AG said that its top executives had been briefed on issues relating to the diesel emissions scandal prior to the time that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the company a Notice of Violation last fall. Still, the company maintains that its CEO may not have understood the gravity of the situation.
VW Group has previously been cagey about whether top executives knew that engineers had been installing illegal defeat devices in diesel vehicles. (The term “defeat device” here refers to lines of code in the engine management software.) So-called defeat devices suppress the car’s emissions control system when it’s being driven normally, allowing the system to work when the car is being tested in a lab. This setup resulted in diesel Volkswagens, Audis, and Porsches releasing many times the allowed limit of NOx emissions every time the car got on the road.
If top executives knew about the defeat devices, they could face additional lawsuits from shareholders on top of the billions in fines that the EPA and the Department of Justice have sued VW Group for. The company also must account for the cost to fix or buy back the affected cars.
Tomi Engdahl says:
VW Will Buy Back Your Cheating, Polluting Diesel
http://www.wired.com/2016/04/vw-will-offer-buy-back-cheating-polluting-diesels/
Volkswagen wants to buy back the 500,000 or so diesel cars that it programmed to cheat on US emissions test, or repair them and compensate owners for their trouble.
Under a plan that Reuters says VW is expected to present to a federal judge on Thursday, the German automaker will offer a cash payment to owners who return their cars, or make the modifications needed to ensure the cars meet emissions standards. Anyone who opts to sell back a car will be compensated for the value of the car before the scandal came to light in September, plus an unspecified bonus.
Between 2008 and 2015, Volkswagen sold 11 million cars containing software that detected when they were being tested for emissions compliance, and changed the engine settings to meet standards. The rest of the time, the cars went about spewing up to 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxides (NOx), which is linked to asthma and other respiratory problems.
It remains to be seen how VW will repair any vehicles that customers aren’t willing to unload, but the known options aren’t tantalizing. VW could tweak the software so the car delivers the emissions recorded during testing, but that would hurt fuel economy and performance. It could add a urea tank to the car, effectively eliminating NOx emissions. Doing so is expensive, though
Tomi Engdahl says:
Volkswagen’s US Sales Plummet 25 Percent as Dieselgate Rolls On
http://www.wired.com/2015/12/volkswagen-us-sales-plummet-25-as-dieselgate-rolls-on/
Volkswagen of America sales dropped 24.7 percent in November compared to the same month in 2014, the automaker announced today. The drop, from 31,725 to 23,882 cars, is the latest blow in the ongoing disaster that is VW’s diesel scandal.
Meanwhile, the auto industry as a whole is on pace for record sales in November, according to the Detroit Free Press.
This is the first clear sign of the undoubtedly serious damage VW will face in the US. (In October, sales actually rose .24 percent over 2014.) November sales of the Golf and Passat dropped by more than 60 percent, Beetle coupe sales fell nearly 50 percent. All three vehicles were previously available with the dastardly 2-liter TDI engine.
Tomi Engdahl says:
More discoveries in the emission – the minister revealed 16 different car brands
Germany irregularities have been found 16 car brand release, announces the Minister of Transport Alexander Dobrindt.
Problems have been observed, according to the Minister on the following brands: Volkswagen, Audi, Mercedes, Opel, Porsche, Renault, Alfa Romeo, Chevrolet, Dacia, Fiat, Hyundai, Jaguar, Jeep, Land Rover, Nissan and Suzuki
Source: http://www.iltasanomat.fi/autot/art-2000001164355.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
VW’s Gonna Drop $15B to Clean Up Its Diesel Mess in the US
https://www.wired.com/2016/06/vws-gonna-drop-15b-clean-diesel-mess-us/
Volkswagen will spend more than $15 billion to atone for its diesel cheating scandal in the United States, two thirds of which will go to buying back cars from customers, Bloomberg reports.
Under the settlement, which VW will likely file tomorrow in a San Francisco court, the automaker will pay $2.7 billion in fines to the EPA and California Air Resources Board, and another $2 billion to support zero emission vehicle development, according to Reuters.
This marks the latest and most substantial blow to the deceitful automaker, which rigged more than 10 million diesel vehicles to pass emissions tests between 2009 and 2015. While on the road, the cars spewed up to 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxide, a pollutant linked to asthma.
Under this deal, VW will offer to buy back cars from American customers at their pre-scandal value, with a bonus payment of up to $10,000 to smooth things over.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Volkswagen to Face $15 Billion Tab in U.S. Settlement
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-27/volkswagen-said-to-face-15-billion-tab-in-u-s-settlement
Tomi Engdahl says:
Here’s How to Cash in on VW’s Dirty Diesel Settlement
https://www.wired.com/2016/06/heres-cash-vws-dirty-diesel-settlement/
Volkswagen cheated, got caught, and is now ready to make amends. Or, as drivers of the company’s so-called clean diesels can think of it: jackpot.
Under a proposed $15 billion settlement filed today, VW will buy back or fix about 475,000 of the diesel-powered cars it programmed to cheat on emissions tests and sold in the US between 2009 and 2015. If you own, lease, or have owned or leased one of those definitely not clean diesels, here’s how to get your restitution.
the proposed settlement, which concerns 2.0-liter diesels—VW hasn’t yet figured out what to do with the 3.0-liter cars that also cheated.
If Breyer gives the green light, you can start cashing in. First off, make sure your car’s covered by punching your vehicle identification number into VW’s Holy Moses We Messed Up microsite.
If you’re leasing, VW will terminate the deal without a fee (doy). If you’re an owner, the automaker will buy back your car at its pre-scandal value, based on options and mileage. Either way, you get a cash payment as an apology for the whole scamming-you-and-destroying-the-atmosphere thing.
For owners, that’ll be somewhere between $5,100 and $10,000 (to be exact, $2,986.73 plus 20 percent of your car’s value).
If you sold your dastardly diesel or bought one off someone else, the two of you will split the cash payment down the middle.
You don’t have to sell the car back right away, but you do have to identify yourself as the car’s owner by September 16, 2016.
Say you forgive your Jetta for cheating on you: You can have VW modify the car so that it meets all emissions regulations, if the EPA and California’s Air Resources Board approve the fix. If that happens at all, it might not be until May 2018.
If you opt out of this settlement, you can’t sell your car back to VW and you don’t get the pile of Benjamins, but you’re still eligible to get your car fixed for free.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Volkswagen’s diesel scandal looks set to continue. The German magazine Bild , the United States sold in 3.0-liter engines would be found three software that have not been approved.
Bild reports that the engines have been built by Audi, which is part of the Volkswagen Group. Software related to the regulatory system of emissions.
Volkswagen was forced to problems with engine control software last year. The company was told in June to have used buybacks of vehicles dollars for more than 15 billion,
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/ei-kai-taas-autovalmistajan-moottoreista-loytyi-salaohjelma-6572329
More: http://www.bild.de/bild-plus/geld/wirtschaft/volkswagen/interne-dokumente-enthuellen-den-vw-abgasbetrug-44552138,var=a,view=conversionToLogin.bild.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
US Finds New Secret Software In VW Audi Engines, Says Report
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/08/08/1811226/us-finds-new-secret-software-in-vw-audi-engines-says-report
It looks like Volkswagen’s diesel scandal could keep rolling as reports claim that the automaker has three hidden software programs in its 3.0-liter engines. Concerns about the German car manufacturers’ 2.0-liter engines could soon reach a conclusion, but the discovery of the hidden software has thrown the future of 3.0-liter diesels into uncertainty.
Oh, not again: US reportedly finds new secret software in VW diesels
You thought this was nearing a conclusion? We’ve only just begun!
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/oh-not-again-us-reportedly-found-new-secret-software-in-vw-diesels/
It looks like Volkswagen’s diesel scandal could keep rolling as reports claim that the automaker has three hidden software programs in its 3.0-liter engines.
Concerns about the German car manufacturers’ 2.0-liter engines could soon reach a conclusion, but the discovery of the hidden software has thrown the future of 3.0-liter diesels into uncertainty.
That secret software in Volkswagen’s 3.0-liter diesels can turn off the vehicles’ emissions controls, Reuters reports, citing the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag. The emissions control system allegedly shuts off after 22 minutes, when most emissions tests take about 20.
If this software does exist, it likely resides in all 3.0-liter diesels that Volkswagen sells in the US. This includes the Audi Q7, Volkswagen Touareg and Porsche Cayenne SUVs. Approximately 85,000 of these cars are roaming around the US
Tomi Engdahl says:
U.S. finds unapproved emissions software in VW Audi engines: Bild am Sonntag
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-audi-idUSKCN10I0PB
U.S. authorities have found three unapproved software programs in 3.0 liter diesel engines made by Volkswagen’s (VOWG_p.DE) Audi (NSUG.DE) unit, German weekly Bild am Sonntag reported, without saying where it had obtained the information.
The software allowed the turbocharged direct injection (TDI) engines used in Audi’s Q7, Porsche’s Cayenne and VW’s Touareg models to shut down emissions control systems after about 22 minutes, the paper said. Official methods to measure emissions usually last about 20 minutes, it added.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Volkswagen get also hit by this:
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Researchers find cryptographic keys shared by millions of Volkswagen vehicles can allow them clone key fobs using cheap radio hardware
A New Wireless Hack Can Unlock 100 Million Volkswagens
https://www.wired.com/2016/08/oh-good-new-hack-can-unlock-100-million-volkswagens/
Volkswagen didn’t immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment, but the researchers write in their paper that VW acknowledged the vulnerabilities they found. NXP, the semiconductor company that sells chips using the vulnerable HiTag2 crypto system to carmakers, says that it’s been recommending customers upgrade to newer schemes for years. “[HiTag2] is a legacy security algorithm, introduced 18 years ago,”
Plenty of evidence suggests that sort of digitally enabled car theft is already occurring.
Tomi Engdahl says:
VW Engineer Pleads Guilty To Conspiracy
http://hackaday.com/2016/09/09/vw-engineer-pleads-guilty-to-conspiracy/
[James Liang], an engineer at Volkswagen for 33 years, plead guilty today to conspiracy. He was an engineer involved in delivering Diesel vehicles to market which could detect an emissions test scenario and perform differently from normal operation in order to pass US emission standards.
According to information in the indictment, none of this happened by mistake (as we suspected). There was a team responsible for developing a mode that would detect a test and pass inspection after the company discovered the engine could not otherwise pass. It’s not hard to see the motivation behind this — think of the sunk cost in developing an engine design. The team responsible for cheating the tests went so far as to push software updates in 2014 which made the cheat better, and lying about the existence of these software “features” when questioned by authorities (again, according to the indictment).
Volkswagen engineer pleads guilty in U.S. diesel emissions probe
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-idUSKCN11F234
A Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) engineer pleaded guilty on Friday to helping the German automaker evade U.S. emission standards, and his lawyer said he would cooperate with federal authorities in their criminal probe.
James Liang, who has worked for VW since 1983 and was part of a team of engineers who developed a diesel engine, was charged with conspiring to commit wire fraud and violating U.S. clean air laws. He is the first person to face criminal charges in connection with the diesel emissions cheating case.
“I knew that Volkswagen did not disclose the defeat device to U.S. regulators,” Liang said in court. His lawyer, Daniel Nixon, said after the hearing that his client was “very remorseful.”
Liang could face up to five years in prison but may get a much lighter sentence if the government finds he provided substantial assistance.
VW has already agreed to spend up to $16.5 billion to address environmental, state and owner claims in the United States. It still faces billions in potential fines and must resolve the fate of 85,000 polluting 3.0-liter vehicles.
Liang was one of the engineers in Wolfsburg, Germany, directly involved in developing the defeat device for the Volkswagen Jetta in 2006, according to the indictment.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Volkswagen Group threatens to choke on exhaust gasses. Two German magazines – Bild am Sonntag and the Süddeutsche Zeitung – tell us that in Audi have been found in the software, which is tamper-proof exhaust measurement tests.
California’s CARB Organization (California Air Resources Board) has found the Audi to the software, which reduces engine emissions, if it detects that the steering wheel is turned. That is normal where the emissions are much higher than the test bench at the inspection station.
VW Group is in late November are going to court in San Francisco. There figuring out what to do with them 85 thousand years 2009-2015 Audi, for Porsche and VW, in which emissions from 3 liter engines in excess of allowable limits 9 times.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5393:audikin-huijaa-pakokaasumittauksissa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
VW Admits Audi Automatic Transmission Software Can Change Test Behavior
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/11/14/2324221/vw-admits-audi-automatic-transmission-software-can-change-test-behavior
In response to a report via Bild am Sonntag last week, which found a new type of defeat device hidden inside an Audi automatic transmission, Volkswagen finally came around to admitting the findings. “Adaptive shift programs can lead to incorrect and non-reproducible results” in emissions tests, VW told Reuters on Sunday. CNET reports:
Software in the AL 551 automatic transmission may detect testing conditions and shift in a way that minimizes emissions, only to act “normally” out on the road. Much like Dieselgate’s defeat device, that leads to higher-than-imagined pollution, which could be in excess of legal limits. Audi’s AL 551 can be found in both gas and diesel vehicles, including the A6, A8 and Q5.
Audi software can distort emissions in tests, VW says
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-audi-idUSKBN1370Q3
Audi cars with automatic transmissions have technology capable of distorting emissions when they are tested, Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) said, as its luxury flagship is battling allegations over a reported discovery of a new cheat software device.
Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper said a week ago that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) had this summer discovered cheating software in an older Audi model, which is unrelated to the device that triggered last year’s diesel emissions test-cheating scandal at parent VW.
The software in CARB’s discovery lowered carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by detecting whether a car’s steering wheel was turned as it would be when driving on a road and was used in diesel and petrol models in Europe for years, Bild had said.
The EPA and CARB are currently focused on reaching agreement with VW on how to resolve 85,000 3.0 liter 2009-2015 diesel Audi, Porsche, and VW vehicles that emit up to nine times legally allowable pollution levels ahead of a Nov. 30 court hearing in San Francisco.
Tomi Engdahl says:
VW admits Audi automatic transmission software can change test behavior
Just when you thought the spectre of Dieselgate was slowly disappearing into the ether…
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/vw-admits-audi-automatic-transmission-software-can-change-test-behavior/
Last week, a German newspaper reported that Audi was hiding emissions-cheating software in its automatic transmissions. I don’t know why it took a whole week, but Volkswagen finally came around to admitting as much.
“Adaptive shift programs can lead to incorrect and non-reproducible results” in emissions tests, Volkswagen told Reuters on Sunday. Software in the AL 551 automatic transmission may detect testing conditions and shift in a way that minimizes emissions, only to act “normally” out on the road. Much like Dieselgate’s defeat device, that leads to higher-than-imagined pollution, which could be in excess of legal limits.
Audi software can distort emissions in tests, VW says
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-audi-idUSKBN1370Q3
Tomi Engdahl says:
Europe to launch legal action against countries over diesel emissions cheating
UK, Germany, Greece and others rapped for not acting on evidence
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/13/europe_to_launch_legal_action_against_countries_over_diesel_emissions_cheating/
The European Commission has begun legal action against seven member states over emissions cheating in the “dieselgate” scandal.
The Commission is frustrated with how national authorities have handled the issue, which began last year when Volkswagen admitted to emissions ‘discrepancies’ in engines fitted in 11 million vehicles.
Volkswagen’s admission came after the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accused it of breaching US laws by deploying software in some of its vehicles that allowed it to “cheat” obligations on emissions levels.
The Commission has begun proceedings against the UK, Germany, Greece, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Spain for not acting on the evidence uncovered by investigations, or for failure to bring in laws punishing environmental breaches.
Tomi Engdahl says:
F.B.I. Arrests Volkswagen Executive on Conspiracy Charges in Emissions Scandal
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/business/volkswagen-diesel-emissions-investigation-settlement.html?_r=0
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has arrested a Volkswagen executive who faces charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States
After a study by West Virginia University first raised questions over Volkswagen’s diesel motors in early 2014, Mr. Schmidt played a central role in trying to convince regulators that excess emissions were caused by technical problems rather than by deliberate cheating. Much of the data presented to regulators was fabricated, officials of the California Air Resources Board have said.
FBI arrests Volkswagen executive on fraud charges: NYT
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-usa-idUSKBN14T0JA
Tomi Engdahl says:
Audi Engineer Exposes Cheat Order
http://hackaday.com/2017/02/27/ethics-in-engineering-audi-engineer-exposes-cheat-order/
In an interesting turn of events last week in a German court, evidence has materialized that engineers were ordered to cheat emissions testing when developing automotive parts.
Last Tuesday, Ulrich Weiß brought forward a document that alleges Audi Board of Director members were involved in ordering a cheat for diesel emissions. Weiß was the head of engine development for Audi, suspended in November of 2015 but continued to draw more than half a million dollars in salary before being fired after prior to last week’s court testimony.
Volkswagen Group is the parent company of Audi and this all seems to have happened while the VW diesel emissions testing scandal we’ve covered since 2015 was beginning to come to light. Weiß testified that he was asked to design a method of getting around strict emissions standards in Hong Kong even though Audi knew their diesel engines weren’t capable of doing so legitimately.
Audi Engineer Had Smoking Dieselgate Gun In His Safe, Pulls It In Court
https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/bertelschmitt/2017/02/22/audi-engineer-had-smoking-dieselgate-gun-in-his-safe-pulls-it-in-court/&refURL=http://hackaday.com/2017/02/27/ethics-in-engineering-audi-engineer-exposes-cheat-order/&referrer=http://hackaday.com/2017/02/27/ethics-in-engineering-audi-engineer-exposes-cheat-order/#eca352b2423d
A document, locked up in the safe of an Audi engineer for years, could be explosive enough to blow away Audi CEO Rupert Stadler. It could destroy Audi’s fortunes in China, and with that a major source of Volkswagen’s cash. In a German court, the document was pulled out of the safe yesterday, to prove that Stadler ordered Audi engineers to cheat regulators in Hong Kong at a time when regulators in America were tracking down the dieselgate cheat of the century.
The dangerous document was presented in a German labor court by Audi engineer Ulrich Weiß, one of the company’s leading diesel developers. Weiß was suspended in November 2015. He continued drawing a 450,000 Euro ($473,000) annual salary until exactly last week, when he was fired, along with three other Audi engineers.
Yesterday, Audi found itself under new high-caliber fire. Weiß produced a document signed by Audi’s head of powertrain development Dr. Thomas Heiduk. It seemed to document that Audi board members Rupert Stadler (CEO), Ulrich Hackenberg (R&D), Werner Zimmermann (Quality Assurance), and Michael Neumayer (Product Management) “ordered a cheat,” wrote BILD-reporter Michael Manske, who covered the proceedings.
The order from above ended a heated debate.
Weiß’s attorney Hans-Georg Kauffeld said in court that his client locked-up the paper in his safe as insurance, and that he told his people to resist the order. Whether Hong Kong regulators were later fooled or not, nobody could say in court for sure.
Audi accused Weiß in court of destroying evidence, and of not properly informing the board. Weiß denied the allegations.
If the matter can’t be contained in the Mannheim court, it could do more harm than just shorten the career of Stadler, who has been under fire for many months now. Audi is the leading premium brand in China, and it has been Volkswagen’s biggest money maker. In January, Audi’s sales in China slumped 35% year-on-year amid a heated dispute with Audi’s dealers. Last week, Audi’s China dealers demanded $4 billion to cover losses.
Despite the intrigue, collusion, and court-room drama of a best-selling mystery novel, there is little echo in the German press.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emissions cheating detection shines light on black box code
But boffins say better tools are needed to nab scofflaws
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/22/emissions_cheating_detection/
Researchers analyzing the emissions defeat devices found in automobiles made by the Volkswagen Group and Chrysler Fiat Automobiles have developed a way to test software for misbehavior, but they caution that lack of visibility into programming code could pose a challenge for regulators.
In 2015, the US Environmental Protection Agency charged Volkswagen AG and its subsidiaries, Audi AG and Volkswagen Group of America, with violating the Clean Air Act. The agency said the company had used a “defeat device” to alter diesel engine emissions on vehicles over the span of several years during regulatory testing.
Volkswagen has acknowledged that over 11 million vehicles worldwide carried its emissions cheating software.
The scandal claimed the company’s CEO at the time, Martin Winterkorn, and is expected to cost the company at least $18.3 billion. In April, a US judge hit the company with a $2.8 billion criminal fine.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Germany Detects Emissions Cheat Software In Audi Models
https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/06/01/1959246/germany-detects-emissions-cheat-software-in-audi-models
The German government has accused Audi of cheating emissions tests with its top-end models, marking the first time the company has been accused of such wrongdoing in its home country. Reuters reports:
The German Transport Ministry said it has asked Volkswagen’s (VOWG_p.DE) luxury division to recall around 24,000 A7 and A8 models built between 2009 and 2013, about half of which were sold in Germany. The affected Audi models with so-called Euro-5 emission standards emit about twice the legal limit of nitrogen oxides when the steering wheel is turned more than 15 degrees, the ministry said.
Audi emissions scandal erupts after Germany says it detects new cheating
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-audi-idUSKBN18S5Y5?il=0
Audi’s (NSUG.DE) emissions scandal flared up again on Thursday after the German government accused the carmaker of cheating emissions tests with its top-end models, the first time Audi has been accused of such wrongdoing in its home country.
The German Transport Ministry said it has asked Volkswagen’s (VOWG_p.DE) luxury division to recall around 24,000 A7 and A8 models built between 2009 and 2013, about half of which were sold in Germany.
The affected Audi models with so-called Euro-5 emission standards emit about twice the legal limit of nitrogen oxides when the steering wheel is turned more than 15 degrees, the ministry said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The engineer responsible for Dieselgate has been sentenced to 40 months in prison. There are two takeaways from this: 1) The Nuremberg Defense doesn’t work. 2) Don’t build a business plan around breaking the law, despite what the libertarian hellscape of Hacker News tells you.
Source: https://hackaday.com/2017/11/26/hackaday-links-november-26-2017/
More:
VW engineer sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-sentencing/vw-engineer-sentenced-to-40-month-prison-term-in-diesel-case-idUSKCN1B51YP
WASHINGTON/DETROIT (Reuters) – A federal judge in Detroit sentenced former engineer James Liang to 40 months in prison on Friday for his role in Volkswagen AG’s (VOWG_p.DE) multiyear scheme to sell diesel cars that generated more pollution than U.S. clean air rules allowed.
Prosecutors last week recommended that Liang, 63, receive a three-year prison sentence, reflecting credit for his months of cooperation with the U.S. investigation of Volkswagen’s diesel emissions fraud.
Volkswagen pleaded guilty in March to three felony charges under an agreement with prosecutors to resolve the U.S. criminal probe of the company itself. It agreed to spend as much as $25 billion in the United States to resolve claims from owners and regulators and offered to buy back about 500,000 vehicles.
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 Monkeys and a Beetle: Inside VW’s Campaign for ‘Clean Diesel’
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/world/europe/volkswagen-diesel-emissions-monkeys.html?smid=pl-share&referer=https://tekniikanmaailma.fi/kymmenen-apinaa-katsoi-piirrettyja-ja-hengitti-volkswagenin-dieselauton-pakokaasuja/
In 2014, as evidence mounted about the harmful effects of diesel exhaust on human health, scientists in an Albuquerque laboratory conducted an unusual experiment: Ten monkeys squatted in airtight chambers, watching cartoons for entertainment as they inhaled fumes from a diesel Volkswagen Beetle.
Tomi Engdahl says:
VW Chief Breaks Ranks on Diesel, Suggesting End to Subsidies
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/12/10/business/volkswagen-diesel-subsidies.html?action=click&module=RelatedCoverage&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer&contentCollection=Related
Dec. 10, 2017
The chief executive of Volkswagen said on Sunday that the German government should consider phasing out the subsidies that encourage Europeans to buy diesel cars, a startling change of position by the company largely responsible for diesel’s popularity in Europe.
“We should question the logic and purpose of diesel subsidies,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Volkswagen secured the disastrous results of exhaust tests of exhaust gases
The car manufacturer attempted to prove that the inhalation of diesel cars in its cars caused lower health risks than before but the result was the opposite.
German car wreck financed unethical animal experiments and buried their results because they did not like it.
Even using the scam equipment did not help.
Testing was revealed last week.
Car manufacturer Volkswagen secreted the results of animal testing they did, as they did not like it. The EUGT test laboratory in the United States conducted a test in 2014.
The monkeys were exposed to exhaust gases for four hours, after which blood tests were taken and their respiratory organs were inspected.
German magazine Bild has received research materials and, according to them, VW’s inhaled monkeys suffer more. The result was the opposite of what VW had hoped for and the matter was buried.
Volkswagen claimed earlier that researchers never managed to publish the entire research.
The tests were funded by three German automobile manufacturers, namely Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW. Volkswagen was responsible for apes research.
The knowledge of monkey testing caused tremendous indignation in Germany and worldwide when it came to the public for the first time last week. It then became apparent that EUGT also made human experiments with emissions. The EUGT was closed last year.
Source: http://www.iltalehti.fi/ulkomaat/201801312200710231_ul.shtml
Tomi Engdahl says:
Edward Taylor / Reuters:
BMW to recall 11,700 cars, says it installed wrong engine management software in some cars; move comes after reports of Volkswagen-like emissions manipulation
BMW to recall 11,700 cars after installing wrong engine software
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bmw-emissions/bmw-to-recall-11700-cars-after-installing-wrong-engine-software-idUSKCN1G728U
German carmaker BMW (BMWG.DE) said on Friday it would recall 11,700 cars to fix their engine management software after it discovered that the wrong programming had been installed on its luxury 5- and 7-Series models.
BMW issued the statement after a report in news weekly Der Spiegel suggested it had installed software that manipulated emissions of harmful gases such as nitrogen oxide
Competitor Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) reached a multi-billion-dollar U.S. settlement after admitting installing so-called “defeat devices” on its diesel models designed to game emissions tests.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Volkswagen’s CEO is out following diesel scandal
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/12/volkswagens-ceo-is-out-following-diesel-scandal/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook&sr_share=facebook
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Volkswagen’s CEO is out following diesel scandal
Brian Heater
@bheater / 8 hours ago
Porsche SE Announces Financial Results For 2016
Matthias Müller is out as Volkswagen CEO, amid a diesel emissions scandal that shook the world’s largest car maker. The company confirmed the move today, naming Brand Chief Herbert Diess to the top job in his stead.
Müller had only been in the top role for three years, and while the chief executive was never charged in the scandal, many in the industry believe that he didn’t impose changes quickly enough after information came to light.
This time last year, the company was hit with a $2.8 billion penalty in the U.S., bringing its costs for the scandal up to around $30 billion,
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ex-Volkswagen CEO charged for role in diesel emission scandal
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/03/ex-volkswagen-ceo-charged-for-role-in-diesel-emission-scandal/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&sr_share=facebook
A year and change after the car maker pleaded guilty to obstructing investigations and importing cars under false pretenses, Volkswagen’s former CEO Martin Winterkorn has been charged with conspiracy and wire fraud in a U.S. court. All of this stems from a diesel emissions scandal that ultimately found VW paying $4.3 billion in penalties.
Winterkorn stepped down from his role at Volkswagen in September of 2015, only a matter of days after the German car maker confessed to outfitting 11 million cars with a device designed to cheat at emissions testing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The latest lapse of the Diesel Show: Mercedes-Benz has to repair 774,000 cars
DIESELSKANDAAL The German authorities ordered Daimler to inspect and, if necessary, repair 774,000 Mercedes-Benz diesel powered throughout Europe.
According to Bloomberg, a massive repair reminder is based on suspicions that the manufacturer has installed software misleading for Mercedes-Benz.
This was a great deal to be done by the German Vehicle Agency KBA and it was targeted at three C-Class sedan, Vito-type vans and a GLC-class street hatch
Last year, Daimler voluntarily called for three million types of car-type inspections
Source: https://www.is.fi/autot/art-2000005716427.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Audi CEO arrested in Germany over diesel scandal
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/18/audi-ceo-arrested-volkswagen-says.html
Munich prosecutors said Rupert Stadler was being detained due to fears he might hinder an ongoing investigation into the scandal.
The news has plunged Volkswagen into a leadership crisis.
Tomi Engdahl says:
VW’s Porsche drops diesel for good
https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/24/vw-porsche-drops-diesel-vehicles-for-electric/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
Porsche will no longer make diesel-powered vehicles, opting instead to invest more money into electric and hybrid technology, the company said over the weekend.
waning demand combined with the fallout from the Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal has accelerated Porsche’s move away from diesel. Now it’s ditching diesel for good.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mercedes-Benz Fined $1.5 Billion For Emissions Cheating
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/09/15/0432219/mercedes-benz-fined-15-billion-for-emissions-cheating?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Automaker Daimler AG and subsidiary Mercedes-Benz USA have agreed to pay $1.5 billion to resolve allegations they cheated on emissions tests, officials said Monday. The U.S. Department of Justice, Environmental Protection Agency and the California attorney general’s office said Daimler violated environmental laws by using so-called “defeat device software” to circumvent emissions testing. In doing so, the companies sold roughly 250,000 cars and vans between 2009 and 2016 with diesel engines that didn’t meet state and federal standards. The settlement, which includes civil penalties and still awaits court approval in Washington, will require Daimler to fix the already sold vehicles.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mercedes-benz-daimler-emissions-cheating-1-5-billion-fine/