The VW scandal. How far does it go?

[Witchfinder]

http://www.theguardian.com/business/...icles-involved

As I understand it, this mainly affects Bluemotion / Adblue injection engines from VAG, but that presumably includes a number of Audi models, as well as Seat and Skoda.

Could the scandal widen to include the larger TDI engines, or even petrol engines?

[mattylondon]

The analyst, who on Sunday called VW the “Lance Armstrong of automakers”

I'm sure the bods at VW did their due diligence and risk on this cheating and came to the conclusion it's worth it. Hard to believe they even thought they'd get away with it. It's going to be an interesting few months with this scandal... class actions, other revelations, other manufacturers...

[tintin]

It could go a very long way - from what I've read, it would appear to be deliberate evasion of US EPA rules, and was intended to mislead. In the US at least, there seems to be talk of not only individual (and possibly class action) lawsuits against VW, but also of other manufacturers also taking action, which could easily run into billions.

I doubt they'll fret too much - if it gets too serious, they'll probably use the same "too big to fail" argument that the banks did

[paulrstaylor]

Originally Posted by Witchfinder

Could the scandal widen to include the larger TDI engines, or even petrol engines?

I suspect the answer is yes, anything that has an EU6engine/AdBlue system. I would not be shocked if it was more than just VW group either!?

[PsYcHe]

Given that the entire government mileage/emissions thing is a complete fraud anyway, how can anyone be surprised?

[ainarssems]

There is not much details about how they cheated, from what I understand vehicles provided for the test were the same mechanically and software wise as the ones sold to customers, so how is this cheating? It's just that software was tuned to give better emissions under test conditions. As far as I can see the test itself is flawed if it does not represent real life driving and emissions.

So they messed up test criteria and now blame VW for it and decided they can make money out of it. I bet it is not just VW but pretty much all car manufacturers that 'cheated' in similar way.

[Dezzy]

CROOKS!
I'm sure IT would second this statement "Michael Horn admitted at an event in New York that VW had been dishonest with regulators and the public."

There should be massive incentives now for people with clean fuelled (petrol) engines like £1 off a litre at the pump. And huge taxes for those in dirty tractor fuelled cars

[mattylondon]

But under normal driving conditions the 2.0 TDi units in question emit 10-40 times more pollutants that what is allowed.

[snapdragon]

I don't see it as fraud. There is a strict testing regime and you are writing software - why would you not write it to do as well as possible in the parameters required of the test? What about hybrids that use battery for the duration of the test and then in the real world would start the engine to power the car and a generator? I don't see much difference it's just another form of deferral..

[tintin]

Originally Posted by snapdragon

I don't see it as fraud. There is a strict testing regime and you are writing software - why would you not write it to do as well as possible in the parameters required of the test? What about hybrids that use battery for the duration of the test and then in the real world woul start the engine to power the car and a generator? I don't see much difference it's just another form of deferral..

I think the point is that what they did was specifically - and knowingly - intended to give EPA test results that couldn't be replicated for real.