Not good enough, VW: California nixes toxic mix fix in strict interdict Volkswagen has suffered yet another setback, with California rejecting its proposed fix (a catalytic converter retrofit) and the US Environmental Protection Agency chiming in to agree. It's not yet game-over, though: California's Air Resources Board (CARB) rejected the proposal as "incomplete" rather than inadequate, and wants …
...its decision allows "for a broader array of potential remedies," including mitigation for "past and future environmental harm..."
So past environmental harm is to be calculated (in some way to be specified later, maybe), and the damages applied directly to VW's suppurating wound?
Sounds like an environmentalist's wet dream. "You hurt everyone terribly, and only half your money (disbursed through us) can set it right!"
Environmental harm was done. That is what the emissions regulations are for - to prevent that harm. Volkswagen did circumvent the emissions testing and ship a huge number of toxic gas spewing rolling smog factories, for the purpose of getting themselves some money. The damage is still being done, and will continue for some time, perhaps forever. Money is the only thing corporations understand, so of course the remedy will also be money.
The problem, as is often the case, is that this corporation has so successfully sold its atmosphere destroying cars that it can't afford to remediate all of them and stop the ongoing harm. Of course, because otherwise it would have sold them in the properly engineered reduced emissions configuration originally, and the retrofit costs far more when it is even possible. And that leaves nothing for remediation of the harm already done.
In other words, fully liquidated damages for this would be far more than the company is worth. Equity would be a death sentence for Volkswagen as a warning to others not to do this sort of thing.
Of course that's not going to happen.
Mikel used outrageous, truth-stretching, over-blown, wild histrionics: "...toxic gas spewing rolling smog factories... ...atmosphere destroying cars..."
Yeah, they're basically the same as the previous generation of cars, sold just a bit earlier. Not 'good' of course, but hardly meeting your ludicrous descriptions. In most regions, there would be many other vastly more significant sources of NOx.
Your histrionics are essentially completely-false ecoMental propaganda.
Look up the emissions from heavy diesels, like city buses. Which run 16+ hours a day, often nearly empty. Orders of magnitude in the ratio.
Near a harbour? Ever see a ship smoldering Bunker fuels? OMG.
Yeah, Deepwater Horizon where BP SUPERVISED the installation of that valve that BP bought and they didn't install the second shutoff valve that was supposed to be there as a back up (because it is a regulation that BP deliberately ignored) because BP were deliberately cheap? So the EPA fined them because they were deliberately negligent.
Never said they were innocent or not partially culpable. Plenty of blame to go around.
But I notice both Halliburton and the valve manufacturer (whose name i have since forgotten) didn't end up paying any fines. Fact is, a large chunk of the damage was caused by failure of the well-head concrete, meaning that a top-kill wasn't a feasible solution. It was subsequently discovered that the concrete had been out of spec in both material and placement, and entirely the responsibility of the sub-contractor.
All three firms should have been punished. But BP took the reaming - because even though they're mostly owned by Americans, the name suggests they aren't an American firm, and our multi-national conglomerates have *NEVER* been involved in anything suspect with the government in order to dodge regulations or win a fat juicy contract (ref. Halliburton and Irag War 2: The Enbombening)...
Hmmm, given the history of retrofitted cats to meet Californian air quality standards (see DMC-12 for reference), I'd suspect by the time the "fix" gets through legislation, the cars will end up significantly and noticeably down on power output, with the possibility that retrofitted parts wear out alarmingly quickly.
In the first instance, I can't imagine everyone is going to be happy with how their formerly nippy car drives and that this will damage residuals for the whole of vehicle life.
In the second instance, I can see that being short as VW seek some sort of scrappage scheme in CA. due to the prohibitive cost of replacing all the emission reduction components as they wear out. Once out of warranty, the emissions reduction system will be pulled out by the owners, and as is so often the case, the exhaust gas probe will find itself taking readings from the wrong exhaust come MOT time.
My 'toy' car is mostly decatted to release significantly more power, and move the peak bhp & torque further down the rev range. However, my car still passes an road side emission test due to the racing cat installed in place of the three cats removed. Adding cats to cars seems likely to reverse the process leading to less power made, and at higher revs.
For those who haven't bothered to research the whole VW scandal, the VW Diesel engines have all been tested and certified by the EPA to comply with all U.S. emissions regs. CARB just sets slightly lower emissions requirements because CA thinks they are better than the rest of the U.S... Since all of these engines have been previously tested and they passed all emissions requirements, all VW is obligated to do under law is make sure that any updates to these engines maintain emission regulation compliance in all driving situations as they currently only meet emissions regs ~80% of the time for the older 1.6L/1.9L models. The 2.0L models are compliant over 95% of the time and only need a software update to make them compliant 100% of the time. In reality all that is required is an $11 part to be installed in the older 1.6/1.9L Diesels. No CAT is even required to meet the EPA requirements for the time when the vehicles were sold. The CAT retro fit is the EPA coercing VW to go above and beyond what is required by law.
The EPA and CARB are trying to end sales of all clean Diesels in the U.S. because the Obama administration is promoting electric vehicles. If allowed the EPA will coerce VW into making unnecessary updates on the Diesel engines via abuse of power. The 3.0L V-6 Diesels actually have lower cold start emissions than required because Audi designed these engines to use a hot CAT cleaning cycle during cold starts which was very smart and lowers emissions below EPA/CARB requirements. For that the EPA has threatened to fine VW $3 BILLION dollars... even though the EPA now plans to make this hot CAT cleaning cycle mandatory on 2018 model Diesel engines. How's that for punishing a company for helping to reduce emissions below what is required???
No good deed goes unpunished with the EPA. If there is any means to stop the sale of clean Diesel passenger vehicles in the U.S. the EPA/CARB will do all that they can including destroying companies, industries and eliminating tens of thousands of jobs in the U.S. and elsewhere. In fact this has already occurred and continues to expand the more the EPA postures and makes irrational allegations that they can not defend in court. The more you research the VW scandal you'll find that the trivial exhaust emissions excess is a tempest in a tea cup.
Because the EPA and CARB are all powerful and accountable to no one, they are Hell bent on harming VW the company, VW, Audi, Porsche customers, investors and suppliers to VW just to name a few. As a result of the EPA's knee-jerk over reaction to a trivial exhaust emissions violation for which the small group of people within VW should be held fully accountable (not customers, the other 650,000 employees who did no wrong nor the component suppliers who also did no wrong), the EPA has caused devastation to millions of innocent people's lives around the globe who had absolutely nothing to do with the illegal Diesel software.
Unless you sold or traded your VW Diesel powered vehicle during the EPA's irrational ongoing political attack on VW and Diesels in particular, you have not suffered any losses as VW is updating all engines to be 100% compliant all of the time - at no cost to customers. VW has reached out to it's U.S. Diesel customers affected by the EA189 series Diesel engine issues and given each owner a $500 cash card and a $500 credit for parts, service, etc. at the VW/Audi dealerships. This is in addition to fixing all emissions issue with these vehicles.
The EPA isn't satisfied with that, they want to persecute VW for the indiscretions of a small group of engineers and programmers who violated law and deceived everyone at VW and around the world. The people who committed the crime are the only ones who should be punished but the EPA has already done billions of dollars in damages to millions of innocent people who had nothing to do with the crime. The more outrageous and vindictive the EPA/CARB act towards VW, the greater the loss of U.S. and Euro jobs will be. VW terminated it's third production shift at the Salzgitter, Germany engine factory two weeks after the scandal broke. Ever since then the snowball effect has hurt countless innocent entities.
Why is it that the U.S. is the only government agency looking to persecute VW over a trivial emissions issue. The EPA's reaction to this trivial exhaust emissions violation is outrageous, unreasonable and extremely damaging to all in the U.S. as well as the EU as both economies will suffer significant damage from the EPA's $20 BILLION dollar proposed fines against VW for a totally insignificant issue. Punish the perps not the customers, innocent employees and suppliers! Other countries are requiring VW to fix the vehicles but no one else is threatening Billion dollar fines for a minor offense. Why with so few VW Diesels in the U.S. does the EPA believe Billion dollar fines are justified?
I have personally spoken to the EPA on this matter as well as people in the auto industry with firsthand knowledge of the minor exhaust emissions violation. No one can understand the EPA's reactions. Then we have the 400+ class action lawsuits by the siren chasers. If you haven't figured it out, the gold diggers have all crawled out from under their rocks. It's disgraceful to see such unscrupulous behavior. The U.S. is the land of litigation where if you spill a cup of coffee you can become a millionaire. It's a fact and an embarrassment not to mention complete manipulation of law for Jackpot Justice where those who act irresponsibly get rewarded. This is the same judicial system that will be handling the 400+ bogus VW Diesel lawsuits.
The U.S. should be embarrassed at the way this minor issue is being so blown out of proportion - for financial gain at the expense of VW customers, investors, employees and suppliers. Many more people will feel the pain of a corrupt U.S. government agency and judicial system before this is all settled and the gold diggers and siren chasers ride off into the sunset will literally BILLIONS of dollars in underserved compensation. YOU are the ones who will pay for the outrageous abuse of the U.S. judicial system in the VW scandal! The haters might want to educate themselves and keep the above in mind while they hate.
It is VW that is corrupt for scrimping on pollution control in order to increase their profits. Yes the engines in question were certified by the EPA, but VW cheated on the tests by using software that fits the Clean Air Act's definition of a defeat device. That is fraud. There is not a requirement for cars to meet the emission limits "in all driving conditions". The regulations realize that in certain situations emissions may need to be higher, for example cold weather, climbing hills etc. The cars do have to honestly meet the limits during the EPA test cycle. VW/Audi's in question did not.
Other governments as well as other US government agencies are also investigating VW, contrary to what you say (Korea, Sweden, Canada, New York State etc.). Yes there are a lot of possible lawsuits -- that is what happens when companies break the law. VW should have made sure that it was obeying the law. In Germany it might have sufficient influence to get away with things -- not so in the US. Why do company executives make the big bucks? Because they are responsible for what the company does. If the company does well, the execs do too. If the company breaks the law and hurts people, the executives need to bear responsibility for that too.
Yes VW's actions have hurt customers and investors as well as people walking their dog beside the road. Those who can prove they were hurt as a result of VW's fraud have the right to sue.
Serious corporate environmental crimes, like this, require serious punishment. In the last 8 years, while committing this fraud, VW Group has grown rapidly and has swallowed up quite a few other manufacturers. Why should it be allowed to keep the fruits of its crime?
It's seems pretty obvious that the same exact VW money could be used more effectively to achieve larger reductions in NOx levels in the exact same regions, simply by removing the pea-brain fixation on these precise VW sources.
Instead, evaluate other more-significant NOx sources, and rectify NOx levels in the most cost-effective manner per region, not just fixated on the VWs. For example, heavy diesel engines in city buses that run 16+ hours per day, and may be several generations behind. Fixing a hundred buses in a given region might equal more than 10,000 VWs (due to duty cycle, and generation (era, tier, any?) of emission equipment), and leave bags of VW money left over to do even more.
At the very least, break out a spreadsheet.
It's exceedingly unlikely that the fixated-on-VW approach just happens to be optimum. It's much more likely to be about a tenth as effective of actual optimum.
Opportunity knocking.
I have wondered about that too, and the only answer I can come up with is in the wording of the pollution laws. So, if the law says you must hold driving emissions to defined levels AND pass certain emissions tests to prove that, then you have only complied with half the law if you subsequently drive around emitting in excess of those levels, even if you passed the tests.
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