Volkswagen admits to using "defeat device" software to game U. S. emissions testing.

[randomness]

Well, this is certainly interesting.

From Bloomberg: Volkswagen Admits to Cheating on U.S. Emissions Tests

Volkswagen AG admitted to systematically cheating U.S. air pollution tests, leaving the automaker vulnerable to billions in fines and possible criminal prosecution.

The company sold diesel versions of Volkswagen and Audi cars with software that turns on full pollution controls only when the car is undergoing official emissions testing.

During normal driving, the cars pollute 10 times to 40 times the legal limits, the Environmental Protection Agency said. EPA called the technology a “defeat device.”

Violations of the Clean Air Act could be referred to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution, the EPA said. The potential financial liability is unclear. The EPA could fine the company $37,500 per vehicle, said Cynthia Giles, the agency’s assistant administrator for enforcement. With 482,000 autos part of the case, the total could be $18 billion. The VW investigation involves model years 2009-2015.

Bloomberg's followup story: VW `Clean Diesel' Scheme Exposed as Criminal Charges Weighed

Volkswagen AG’s admission that it cheated to make its diesel cars appear cleaner-burning than they are leaves the automaker facing billions in fines, its executives risking criminal charges and its U.S. expansion plans in tatters.

VW admitted systematically cheating on U.S. air pollution tests for years, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday in citing violations that could add up to $18 billion in fines. The company said it has also heard from the Justice Department, which the EPA said could pursue criminal prosecution.

A Jalopnik story "EPA Says Volkswagen Cheated On Emissions With 482,000 Diesel Cars (Updated)" lists the car models and years involved:

The vehicles affected are the 2009-2015 diesel Jetta, Beetle, Golf, Passat and Audi A3.

Another Jalopnik story notes that Volkswagen has deleted its diesel ads from YouTube:

The ads were a pretty big campaign from Volkswagen USA, and accordingly weren’t just covered by business magazines like AdAge and Fast Company, but were even touted by automotive publications like Car And Driver, which touted them as “hilarious,” while noting their “excellent viral mileage.”

But for all the praise and publicity the ads generated, Volkswagen USA seems to be trying to now scrub them from the Internet. A quick check of Volkswagen USA’s YouTube page shows a record of the ads being there, but now all that’s returned is a big “Deleted Video” sign.

I wonder if (how many?) other car companies have been doing this, and whether VW Group has also tried to game emissions testing elsewhere.

Comments

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

I suspect that there was no need for VW to game the emissions stuff elsewhere, because US regulations on diesel passenger cars are peculiar to the US. Emission regulations outside the US are very different. They target CO2 emissions rather than smog-causing pollutants like CO and unburned hydrocarbons. Reasons for this have to do with the history of how pollution-control regulations evolved in the US versus Europe.

Europe was actually much later to the game of regulating automobile exhaust pollutants than the US was (yes, really!), and much of the regulation came after early awareness of climate change. Europe also had long-standing social and taxation policy encouraging small, fuel-efficient cars, because unlike the US, Europe had virtually no domestically produced oil, at least not until the discovery of oil in the North Sea.

By contrast, much of the early regulation in the US came out of California in the 1960s. California had godawful problems with smog, particularly in the L.A. basin, where pollutants got trapped by temperature inversions. Many other US cities had the same problems.

Taxation schemes on fuels were different, too. In Europe, taxes on diesel were kept low, to encourage efficient automobiles. In the US, taxes on diesel were quite high, because the assumption was that consumers of diesel were operators of medium- and heavy-duty commercial trucks, and road damage occurs as the fourth power of axle weight. (Fuel taxes are nominally supposed to be a "user fee" for road maintenance.)