Cheaters? Recalls? Discuss

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GaryM

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http://jalopnik.com/volkswagens-former-engine-chief-will-be-arrested-if-he-1796391443

Volkswagen's Former Engine Chief Will Be Arrested If He Comes To America

24th June 2017

In case you thought Volkswagen executives were past the Dieselgate arrests, they’re not. After international arrest warrants were issued for five former VW managers Thursday, Automotive News reports that a former VW engine chief was told not to leave Germany to avoid the risk of being detained.

Heinz-Jakob Neusser was the development head of the brand for VW for two years, and during his tenure he allegedly authorized development of software that further aided VW’s cheating emissions software. Warrants issued for his colleagues’ arrests have prompted legal aide to advise him to not fly out of the country. Neusser was suspended from his job in 2015.

Neusser’s role in all of this came to light when court documents released by U.S. authorities showed he signed off on “steering wheel angle recognition” software added to the emissions cheating device. This update made sure that VW’s cars would be able to skirt the emissions tests.

So, with everything else going on, his legal aide asked him to stay put.

“I have urgently advised my client not to leave Germany. Only here is it safe,” lawyer Annette Voges, who’s representing Heinz-Jakob Neusser, told Bild Zeitung in comments published on Saturday.

Things didn’t turn out as planned for a sixth VW manager, one Oliver Schmidt, as his plans to fly out of Miami earlier this February were cut short with an arrest. Schmidt was arrested and thrown in jail.

The German Constitution outlines certain extradition procedures that say authorities can bring their citizens to other European Union countries or an international court, but those protections don’t go beyond Germany’s borders. Extradition to the United States from a third country is what worries Neusser’s lawyer.

So for now, maybe it’s a good time for Neusser to kick back and watch some daytime television in Germany. It can’t be as bad as it is in the U.S., at least.
 
   #222  

Jack@European_Parts

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http://jalopnik.com/fbi-arrests-u-s-volkswagen-executive-on-conspiracy-cha-1790971293


As Volkswagen attempts to steer public opinion toward its electric future at the Detroit Auto Show, it must deal with another high-profile reminder that the Dieselgate scandal is not yet over. According to a report in the New York Times, the former head of VW’s U.S. regulatory compliance office has been arrested by the FBI and charged with conspiracy to defraud the country.


Oliver Schmidt, who was the head of that office from 2014 to March 2015, was arrested in Florida on Saturday and is expected to be arraigned in Miami today. The indictment was filed in Detroit.

From that story:
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.
Mr. Schmidt continued to represent Volkswagen after the company admitted in September that cars were programmed to dupe regulators. He appeared before a committee of the British Parliament in January, telling legislators that Volkswagen’s behavior was not illegal in Europe.
Officials have not responded to requests for comment and a copy of Schmidt’s indictment could not immediately be located.













[COLOR=rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.6)]​








Volkswagen, as you probably know by now, faces lawsuits, fines from the government and this ongoing criminal investigation as part of a coordinated effort to cheat emissions tests with its diesel engines in the U.S. and other countries. A fix for some late-model VW diesels was announced last week, but the company is also having to buy them back from disgruntled owners.
Schmidt is the second Volkswagen employee to face criminal charges as part of the scandal. In September, James Robert Liang, a former engineer and German national, pleaded guilty to a fraud conspiracy charge as well.
As the Times story notes, similar criminal investigations for General Motors and Toyota—related to a defective ignition switch and unintended acceleration, respectively—ended in large fines, but no arrests.




Correction: The Times erroneously reported Schmidt would be arraigned in Detroit; he is being arraigned in Miami, according to court officials who spoke to Jalopnik.
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  • KumichoPatrick George1/09/17 9:08am

    So we arrest a VW executive because a diesel engine emits a bit more pollution than is acceptable, but bankers who crashed the country and made off with billions after the 2008 crash walk free?
    Seriously?

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  • LowtusPatrick George1/09/17 9:12am

    Arrest him. I get it. So when are we going to start arresting Takata executives that knew about their defective airbags and kept selling them to every car manufacturer on the planet. False equivalency once again.


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  • Speed Tinfoil: The story of the other guyPatrick George1/09/17 8:26am

    So he got paid really well to lie to the government and the American people for a while. Then he got caught.
    Why haven’t we made this man president yet?
[/COLOR]​
 
   #223  

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So we arrest a VW executive because a diesel engine emits a bit more pollution than is acceptable, but bankers who crashed the country and made off with billions after the 2008 crash walk free?
Seriously?
German VW execs don't have the political connections that say, Angelo Mozilo or Jon Corzine did.
 
   #224  

Jack@European_Parts

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Time to send WW to get them.............

wonder-woman-dawn-of-justice-grand-heritage-womens-costume.jpg
594983252900003c003b04f9.jpg
 
   #225  

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I remember my times at Bosch some 10 years ago when a high-flyer manager in an open discussion talked about electric propulsion systems.

Jaaa, jaaa, I thenk it's sehr intheresting... But it's alzo very expensive und we kann do Diesels much moar' cheaper mit DPF, zey are essentially cleaning the air.
 
   #228  

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If they actually believe that, then I have a perpetual motion machine to sell Bosch..... :p

In the late 2000s, automotive companies honestly thought that DPFs eliminate soot.

When I worked at AVL, some managers were convinced that
1. DPF diesel exhaust emissions (PM10 concentration) are below the lower measurement threshold (that is, levels opacimeters were able to count particles of 10 micrometers and up in, but not below)
2. Ambient air PM10 levels were above the measurement threshold
3. Thus, DPF diesels remove the soot from the air. The more you go, the more soot you remove from the air.

The joke is, no one reacts to the fun fact that EU4, EU5 and EU6 engines, both diesel AND direct injection gasolines, all generate soot and NOx. Falling back to homogeneous-only mixture for GDI, did not solve this, not even for naturally aspirated engines.

So far, none of the cheating systems received any restrictions in movement on smog alarms. In Budapest, Hungary, however, my EU2 (no soot, no NOx) Audi A4 can't roll out when emissions are high, but my EU5 1.8 TSI car with soot on the exhaust tip, is free to go.
Cars affected are not forced for a recall, it's all voluntarily. Nothing offered or planned for TFSIs.
 
   #229  

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The other automotive global recall campaign got interesting, with Takata filing for bankruptcy earlier this week.....

https://www.yahoo.com/news/air-bag-recalls-lawsuits-lead-055019081.html

'Like bombs': Bankrupt company's air bags still out there

TOM KRISHER, DEE-ANN DURBIN and MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press
June 26, 2017

Takata's lethally defective air bags proved to be the company's undoing Monday. But it could take years to get the dangerous devices off the road in the U.S. and around the world.

Crushed by lawsuits, fines and recall costs, the Japanese auto parts supplier filed for bankruptcy in Tokyo and Delaware and will sell most of its assets for $1.6 billion to a rival company. A small part of Takata will continue to manufacture replacements for the faulty air bag inflators.

The problem, though, is that 100 million of the Takata inflators worldwide have been recalled, 69 million in the U.S. alone in the biggest automotive recall in American history. It will take the industry years to produce that many replacements.

In the meantime, millions of car owners are forced to nervously wait for someone to fix a problem blamed for at least 16 grisly deaths worldwide, 11 of them in the United States. Many owners have been put on waiting lists by their dealers until the parts arrive.

"The big problem is the air bags are still out there. They're like bombs waiting to explode," said Billie-Marie Morrison, the lawyer for a young Las Vegas woman grievously injured by an exploding air bag in March.

In fact, the last batch of U.S. repairs is not scheduled to begin until September 2020, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is overseeing the recall.

"I don't think I have any options," lamented Marv Muller, the owner of a 2009 Subaru Impreza. "It's really bad."

Muller, a recruiter in New York, received a letter in January saying his car needed to have its passenger air bag repaired. He contacted a Subaru dealer, only to be told it didn't have the parts.

He was put on a waiting list and told he would have his car repaired in June. It hasn't happened yet.

In the U.S., more than 16 million inflators have been repaired so far, or 38 percent of the total. In Japan, 70 percent have been replaced, according to Takata. That's partly because Japan won't renew vehicle registrations unless recalls have been completed.

Because of the type of chemical propellant used by Takata, the defective air bags can inflate with too much force and spew deadly shrapnel at drivers and passengers. Takata sold the inflators to 19 automakers, including Toyota, Subaru, BMW, Honda, Ford and Nissan.

Takata's bankruptcy filing clears the way for most of its assets to be taken over by Key Safety Systems, a Chinese-owned company based in suburban Detroit.

Takata President Shigehisa Takada said that with the company rapidly losing value, fiing for bankruptcy was the only way it could carry on.

"We're in a very difficult situation, and we had to find ways to keep supplying our products," Takada said.

Victims and their families fear the bankruptcy filing could leave little money left over to compensate them. Earlier this year, Takata pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges and agreed to pay $1 billion for concealing the defect for years. The penalties include $850 million in restitution to automakers, $125 million for victims and families and a $25 million criminal fine.

"Filing for bankruptcy is going to protect Takata financially, but it's not going to protect drivers who have been injured or are going to be injured," Morrison said.

Morrison's 19-year-old client Karina Dorado was injured when the air bag in her 2002 Honda Accord deployed during an otherwise minor crash. Morrison said Dorado underwent several operations to repair neck and vocal cord injuries, but her voice will never sound the same.

Dorado's car was found to have a defective Takata air bag that had been taken from another vehicle.

That illustrates another one of the headaches for regulators and automakers, who may never be able to trace all of the inflators that need to be repaired.

Lawmakers say the U.S. government needs to do a better job of ensuring the vehicles are fixed. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, pointed out that the Trump administration has yet to appoint someone to lead NHTSA.

In a statement, NHTSA said it has been assured by Takata that the bankruptcy won't disrupt the flow of repair parts

The safety agency is also making sure older cars are fixed first, since the chemical Takata used in the air bags, ammonium nitrate, degrades over time, especially in hot, humid climates.

That worries Angela Dickie, 47, of Charleston, South Carolina, who owns a 2012 Volkswagen Passat with a Takata air bag.

While her vehicle is not as old as the 2001-03 model year vehicles that are considered a priority for repairs, it still makes Dickie nervous to drive it. She said Volkswagen also refused to provide her with a rental car while she waits for a repair.

"By the grace of God I drive the vehicle every day, just like every other person that has these vehicles, because we don't have an option," she said.

__

AP Writers Marcos Martinez in Miami , Ken Ritter in Las Vegas, Joseph Pisani in New York and Elaine Kurtenbach in Tokyo contributed to this report.
 
   #230  

Uwe

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"By the grace of God I drive the vehicle every day, just like every other person that has these vehicles, because we don't have an option," she said.
Sure you do. If you think you're better off without it, get someone to pull the airbag(s) out until replacements are ready. But with a 0.8% rupture rate in bags tested after being pulled & replaced, I doubt it makes any sense to do so, especially in a car that new.
 
   #231  

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http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1111250_diesel-deception-more-pain-ahead-for-vw-brands-bosch

Diesel deception: more pain ahead for VW brands, Bosch?

27th June 2017

Volkswagen Group is moving toward wrapping up its diesel deceit in the United States, but in Europe, it may only be starting.

European owners of Volkswagen Group vehicles—Volkswagen, Audi, Seat, and Skoda—may justifiably feel as if they've received the short end of the stick when it comes to compensation.

In fact, there is no compensation.

The news service Reuters reports that VW Group will not offer a buyback option and has no have plans to compensate owners in any way, shape, or form.

Naturally, this hasn't sat well with some owners, who feel dissatisfied with VW's sole offer: an extended warranty.

But the concept of class-action lawsuits—the ability for consumers to band together and sue large entities en masse—doesn't exist for most Europeans.

However, individual lawsuits are forthcoming and a U.S. law firm is working with owners to ensure those suits are filed quickly and properly.

Thus far, Volkswagen has remained free of any criminal charges in Europe, too.

But that may change: Germany has opened an investigation into possible emission cheating devices found in the 2009-2013 model years of the Audi A8 TDI luxury sedan.


Additionally, intricate emission cheating software has reportedly been found on Porsche Cayenne SUVs, according to Forbes.

The Cayenne reportedly features two distinct driving modes: one that detects when the vehicle is on the dyno for testing, and one dirtier, aggressive mode.

The latter is said to spew 68 percent more NOx pollutants than allowed in Germany, per a careful study conducted by Germany's TÜV.

Combine all of this information with one particular lawsuit that may have set an important precedent for VW owners, and Dieselgate 2.0 could be brewing in Europe.

A German court ruled in favor of one Volkswagen TDI owner in a single lawsuit and ordered the automaker to fully reimburse the owner for the original purchase price of the car.

That's in contrast to the U.S. settlement, in which TDI owners were offered what is effectively a generous used-car value for their cars—but not the full price they paid when new.

The German judgment could prove to be a disastrous precedent for Volkswagen if other owners also win their cases and are granted similar compensation.

Bosch isn't free and clear either—the supplier reportedly took an active role in developing the emission cheating software.

German authorities are continuing to investigate its role as well.

Could Dieselgate 2.0. could prove even worse for the firms involved in the deception?

That now seems to be at least a plausible possibility.
 
   #232  

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Sure you do. If you think you're better off without it, get someone to pull the airbag(s) out until replacements are ready.

This same logic explains why I'm in no hurry to replace the failed airbag ECU in my Audi...and I don't have a clue who made those giant marshmallows.....
 
   #233  

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This same logic explains why I'm in no hurry to replace the failed airbag ECU in my Audi...and I don't have a clue who made those giant marshmallows.....
Yeah, but that car has a 5-point harness in it right? IMO, a harness like that make frontal airbags irrelevant/redundant, but of course 99.9% of the population would never bother with putting it on if they had it. Back when I had one in my Mk.1,
I used to put it on for anything more than a trip around the block. That tended to get me strange looks from toll-booth attendants as well as cops..
 
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No harnesses in that car. Ugly green heated (luxury) seats needed harnesses. The interior in my TT is so small that it fit extra-snug without additional restraints! :D (In all seriousness, I had a small co-driver at Nationals one year that used a ratchet strap around the seat back, because the seat/car was a little bit large for her.)

Every single part of the interior is 100% original with nothing added/removed, with the exception of the glove compartment locking latch that snapped off in Canada and is now bouncing around the bottom of the glovebox.....
 
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There was a feature on the #vwfixfail emissions fix on the UK BBC Watchdog programme this week. This usually appears online via catch-up TV immediately after airing but there appears to have been some kind of legal wranglings over the airing which delayed it's availability for 2 days. No-one outside of the BBC appears to know exactly what the legal issues were and the BBC aren't prepared to divulge any details. It's possible it was to do with another feature in the programme and not the VW one but in all likelihood it probably was the VW piece and it's possible that something has been edited out of the catch-up version but I'm not sure as I didn't see the live airing of the programme.

Anyone in the UK or people outside the UK who use a VPN that can utilise a UK IP address can access the catch-up programme here...


The section of interest is between 02:41 and 13:53.

There is also an edited version also on Vimeo that just includes the VW feature without any other non-relevant "noise", but I'm not sure how long it will remain there because once the BBC find out they will probably have it taken down...

[video]https://player.vimeo.com/video/225570853[/video]​
 
   #238  

Jack@European_Parts

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You don't say? :popcorn:


Dieselgate Product Of Vast VW-BMW-Daimler Car Cartel Conspiracy, Fresh Report Says
[url]https://www.forbes.com/sites/bertelschmitt/2017/07/22/dieselgate-product-of-vast-vw-bmw-daimler-car-cartel-conspiracy-fresh-report-says/#4fd7ce8f7ce8[/URL]

Two years ago -- the dieselgate scandal just started to unfold -- I recommended to dig deeper, and to dig elsewhere in the industry than just Volkswagen, because having worked in said industry, I knew that dieselgate is everywhere. Everybody in the industry knew it, but nobody talked. In America, dieselgate-cheaters are behind bars, while in Europe, emissions cheating is treated as a lesser offense than illegal parking: Not a single fine was handed out in Europe. Today, peccadillo suddenly morphed into a monstrous antitrust case, when it became known that dieselgate is the product of a secret cartel far beyond Volkswagen. “Audi, BMW, Daimler, Volkswagen, and Porsche colluded for years in more than 1000 meetings,” wrote Der Spiegel [German, paywall] today.
Germany's Handelsblatt has a similar report. EU antitrust regulators confirmed investigations, Reuters wrote.
The dieselgate scandal never was as simple as the common good prevailing over the villain Volkswagen. Today, we may begin to understand the true enormity of a scandal that involves a cabal of carmakers and politicians. I said begin, because the scandal is way too big to wrap our heads around it in one go.



960x0.jpg
Dieter Zetsche, CEO of Daimler, Harald Krueger, CEO of BMW and Matthias Mueller, CEO of Volkswagen (Photo: CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP/Getty Images)



For two decades, more than 200 managers and engineers of five large German automakers met in 60 different task forces to coordinate “the development of cars, costs, suppliers, and markets,” wrote der Spiegel. “They cooperated in secrecy, as closely as one would expect it from the divisions of one company, of a German Auto Inc – or a cartel.”

According to the report, the cartel colluded on everything from the soft-top of a convertible to the assessment of suppliers. The German Five also agreed on the size of the urea, or AdBlue tank.
The diesel engine was Europe's answer to CO2 curbs. Diesel also was an answer to a Japanese threat, says Der Spiegel. Toyota lowered consumption and CO2 with its hybrid engine. Diesel also is more efficient, and therefore produces less CO2. At the same time, the diesel engines makes something much nastier: Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) a gas that leads to the premature death of 72,000 people per year, as the European Environmental Agency said. NOx can be neutralized with AdBlue. The liquid needs a tank, and the bigger the tank, the more money it costs. If automakers would agree on a moderately sized AdBlue tank, they could save “up to 80 EUR [$93] per vehicle” the minutes of one of the secret meetings are quoted. When you make 10 million cars a year, those 80 Euros quickly turn into real money.
In 2006, the secret committees agreed to do something about the tanks and the expense, and in 2008, something was done. “After several meetings, telephone calls, and emails, Daimler, Audi, BMW, and VW agreed in September 2008 on an 8 liter tank for all vehicles.”
The trouble was: if the nasty NOx is properly neutralized, that 8 liter tank did last for not more than 3,700 miles. To last the usual 10,000 miles between oil changes, “a tank of at least 19 liters” would be needed, Der Spiegel quoted a document authored by Audi. The document noted that “Daimler, VW, and BMW concur.”
A few years later came stricter regulations both in Europe, and the U.S. , requiring more AdBlue. “Nobody had the obvious idea to mount bigger AdBlue tanks,” notes the report. Just the opposite happened: Audi warned against an “arms race of tank sizes, which we should continue to avoid.”
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Dieter Zetsche, CEO of Daimler, Harald Krueger, CEO of BMW and Matthias Mueller, CEO of Volkswagen (Photo: CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP/Getty Images)



Bigger tanks were not needed, says the report, because automakers “had long started to dupe regulators and customers about the true emissions of the cars.” Once cars were out of the testing labs, exhaust treatment was mostly turned off, sparing customers the AdBlue hassle, and OEMs the expense for bigger tanks.
That Germany’s automaker association VDA organized sundry task forces was no secret in the industry. “It is possible that this spawned backroom deals between a smaller group with the intent to make the best out of the very porous laws,” said often quoted car professor Ferdinand Dudenhöffer in German television. “It is quite possible that those cartels exist.”
Interestingly, VDA members Ford and GM’s Opel were not invited into the back rooms. A former R&D chief of Ford Germany told me recently that his bean counters kept bugging him about the smaller and cheaper AdBlue tanks of the German competition. He had no answer.
The scandal became a matter of record when, on July 4 2017, Volkswagen made, says Der Spiegel, “some kind of a voluntary disclosure” to Germany’s Federal Cartel Office and the EU Commission, alleging “involvement in presumptive antitrust violations.” Daimler also reported itself to the authorities, the report says.
Volkswagen and Daimler did not come clean due to a sudden pang of conscience. Indications of a car cartel transpired when the cartel office tracked a steel cartel and raided six companies. The impounded documents led to the car conspiracy. Somehow, Volkswagen and Daimler received wind of the authorities being on their case, and they raced to get into the good graces of the investigators.
According to Der Spiegel, Volkswagen hopes to get away scot-free by cooperating with the government. So does Daimler, “and only the authorities know who was faster in the high art of self-incrimination.” In cases like these, who first rats out the other conspirators can get away with a lesser sentence, or none at all. There is no leniency for being second. Companies found guilty of breaching EU cartel rules face fines of as much as 10 percent of their global sales, wrote Reuters. On 2016 sales revenue of 217.3 billion, Volkswagen is looking at fines approaching 22 billion EUR ($25 billion). Daimler's group revenue was 153.3 billion EUR in 2016, BMW's 94.2 billion EUR.
The conspiring German Five did not sail blindly into an antitrust case. Documents and memos seen by Der Spiegel mention again and again that the meetings could collide with German and EU cartel law.
Germany's BILD Zeitung writes that prosecutors in Braunschweig (investigating Volkswagen) Munich (investigating Audi) and Stuttgart (investigating Daimler) "are very interested in the documents." So are prosecutors in the U.S. Germany's Rheinische Post wrote that Volkswagen CEO Matthias Müller is not worried about traveling to the U.S., and will do so in a few months. "There is no warrant out on me," Müller said. This could change. According to the report, the documents say that the slimmed-down AdBlue tank has been approved "at board level."
In Germany, the explosive case comes at a highly inopportune moment. Federal elections are looming in Germany, and dieselgate has turned into a political football ever since Germans started worrying that their beloved diesel cars could be locked out of inner cities.
960x0.jpg
Dieter Zetsche, CEO of Daimler, Harald Krueger, CEO of BMW and Matthias Mueller, CEO of Volkswagen (Photo: CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP/Getty Images)



For the two years since the dieselgate scandal became public, the German government has intently looked the other way. Government and auto industry “live in a common law relationship” in Germany, Jürgen Resch, head of the environmental lobby group DUH, once told the VDI Nachrichten, and it remains an often used quotation in Deutschland. The head of the VDA association, whose taskforces appeared to have spawned the secret backroom meetings, is Matthias Wissmann. He used to be Germany’s Minister of Transport.
“Intertwined politics and industry hurt Germany,” Dudenhöffer told me. “Ms. Merkel ringfenced the German auto industry, and it didn’t do it a favor. German laws and regulators are solely aimed at protecting the industry. This had to go wrong.”
The DUH activists, who were instrumental in getting the dieselgate football rolling way back in 2014, have long given up on trying to get German regulators end their inaction. The group has better luck in the courts, and diesel driving bans loom in 16 cities of Germany. Wrote Christiaan Hetzner in Automotive News:
“Almost 30 years ago, Volkswagen ads introduced the German term fahrvergnuegen to communicate driving enjoyment. But now, because of its cheating on diesel emissions tests, VW has unwittingly helped introduce a new, less flattering term: fahrverbote, or driving bans.”
“The diesel car sales share slipped to lowest level since start of diesel emissions scandal,” worried auto industry subscribers to the AID Newsletter could read in a recent issue. 52% of newly bought passenger cars were diesel powered in October of 2015. Last May, the diesel take rate was down to 45.1%, and there is no sign that it would end its “seemingly unwavering downhill slide,” as AID editor Matthias Schmidt put it.
Worried about a loss of power in Berlin, and a loss of sales in Wolfsburg, Stuttgart, Munich, and Ingolstadt, the common law partnership between government and auto industry recently switched from apathy to actionism. A month ago, headlines of a monster recall of 12 million diesel cars in Germany made the rounds, as “German lawmakers are flexing their muscles ahead of national elections on Sept. 24,” Reuters wrote. The threats worked: Last week, Daimler “voluntarily” recalled three million diesel cars in Germany, Audi “voluntarily” did the same with 850,000 cars. Daimler figures costs of around 70 EUR ($81) per car, which in a Daimler shop won’t buy much more than a pat on the head.
In two weeks, co-conspirators Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, BMW and Daimler will confer with other automakers, unions, and politicians at a “diesel summit” in Berlin. Consumer or environmental groups are not invited. Under the cloud of “one of the biggest antitrust cases in the history of Germany’s industry,” as Der Spiegel calls the case of the car cartel, it should become an interesting meeting.
In rare three part harmony, BMW, Volkswagen, and Daimler did not want to "comment on speculations." Even that sounded pre-arranged.
 
   #239  

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I'm still missing T(F)SI-gate, can't wait to get my CDAA replaced with some belt driven NA-electro hybrid... I'm also expecting a public apology to my EURO-II ABC engine from the local authorities. That's got no soot on the exhaust tips.
 
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http://www.autonews.com/article/20170728/OEM11/170729742/2017-fiat-chrysler-diesel-vehicles-approved-for-sale-by-regulators

2017 Fiat Chrysler diesel vehicles approved for sale by regulators

July 28, 2017 @ 10:35 am
David Shepardson
Reuters
UPDATED: 7/28/17 11:37 am ET - adds details

WASHINGTON -- Fiat Chrysler Automobiles won approval from U.S. and California regulators on Friday to sell 2017 diesel vehicles after it came under scrutiny for alleged excess emissions in older diesel vehicles.

Fiat Chrysler hopes to use the software upgrade in 2017 as the basis of a fix to address agencies' concerns over 2014-2016 Fiat Chrysler diesel vehicles after the Justice Department sued the automaker in May, alleging excess emissions.

Regulators contended the older vehicles had undisclosed emissions controls that allowed vehicles to emit excess pollution in normal driving.

Reuters on Thursday reported the planned approvals by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board.

In May, the Justice Department sued Fiat Chrysler, accusing it of illegally using software to bypass emission controls in 104,000 diesel Jeep Grand Cherokees and Dodge Ram 1500 trucks sold since 2014.

FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne said in a statement announcing the approvals on Friday that the company was eager to update the emissions control software in its earlier model-year vehicles. The company had been seeking permission for months to begin selling 2017 diesel vehicles.

Fiat Chrysler had begun assembling diesel trucks this month in anticipation of approval. The software update will have no effect on the fuel economy ratings or vehicle performance, the automaker said.

The company has denied any wrongdoing, saying there was never an attempt to create software to cheat emissions rules.

The EPA said on Friday that it had subjected these and many other vehicles to additional scrutiny with tests to prevent the use of illegal devices.

The EPA and California first accused Fiat Chrysler in January of using undisclosed software to allow excess diesel emissions in 104,000 U.S. 2014-2016 Jeep Grand Cherokees and Dodge Ram 1500 trucks.

Reuters reported on Thursday that it could take weeks or months for regulators to sign off on testing and then approving Fiat Chrysler's plan to use the software in 2017 diesels to update older vehicles.

The January notice of violation was the result of a probe that arose out of regulators' investigation of rival Volkswagen AG's excess emissions.

Regulators are also investigating emissions in Daimler AG Mercedes-Benz diesel vehicles, but have yet to take any action. The German automaker withdrew its request for approval to sell 2017 U.S. Mercedes-Benz diesels in May.
 
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