EPA says Volkswagen cheated on emissions with 482,000 diesel cars

Benny_Cake · 23-09-2015 12:42pm

Oafley Jones wrote: »

There's certainly a better case for it in the US where you've got a far wider source of energy. It's a relatively small percentage of our supply comes from renewables. The rest is burning coal, which is hardly green.

According to the Eirgrid dashboard, over the last month 52% of our energy was produced from gas, 20% from coal, 18% from renewables. It'd be nice to get Moneypoint replaced all the same.

dr.fuzzenstein · 23-09-2015 12:56pm

Benny_Cake wrote: »

According to the Eirgrid dashboard, over the last month 52% of our energy was produced from gas, 20% from coal, 18% from renewables. It'd be nice to get Moneypoint replaced all the same.

By nuclear.

Conor20 · 23-09-2015 2:35pm

cnocbui wrote: »

I would wish for Gormley to get lung cancer...

If you drive a diesel vehicle, then you are already contributing to that possibility. Sadly, you're increasing the risk of cancer for everyone around you including yourself. However, let me guess: if someone in government tries to restrict your ability to, or increase the cost of driving vehicles which impact other's rights by increasing their chance of cancer, you will attack them for unreasonably impacting your rights.

josip · 23-09-2015 4:10pm

Winterkorn gone.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34340997

Tea 1000 · 23-09-2015 4:15pm

All this crap happened while Ferdinand Piech was at the helm though!

dr.fuzzenstein · 23-09-2015 4:23pm

Tea 1000 wrote: »

All this crap happened while Ferdinand Piech was at the helm though!

They just needed a sacrificial lamb.

cnocbui · 23-09-2015 4:23pm

Conor20 wrote: »

If you drive a diesel vehicle, then you are already contributing to that possibility. Sadly, you're increasing the risk of cancer for everyone around you including yourself. However, let me guess: if someone in government tries to restrict your ability to, or increase the cost of driving vehicles which impact other's rights by increasing their chance of cancer, you will attack them for unreasonably impacting your rights.

I know, which is why I said it. Funny thing is, I can say something tongue in cheek that people find shocking but Gormley has actually done as much as he possibly could to maximise the usage of diesel vehicles in this country which may well lead to some people actually getting lung cancer and dying from it, but that's ok, because at least he didn't say something terrible.

I have known for years that diesel exhaust contains the most potent carcinogen ever found. I have never owned a diesel.

jimgoose · 23-09-2015 4:25pm

cnocbui wrote: »

...I have known for years that diesel exhaust contains the most potent carcinogen ever found. I have never owned a diesel.

Same as that. You might as well be talking to the wall once Paddy gets De Chape Tax into his cliggín, though. :pac:

dr.fuzzenstein · 23-09-2015 4:44pm

Conor20 wrote: »

If you drive a diesel vehicle, then you are already contributing to that possibility. Sadly, you're increasing the risk of cancer for everyone around you including yourself. However, let me guess: if someone in government tries to restrict your ability to, or increase the cost of driving vehicles which impact other's rights by increasing their chance of cancer, you will attack them for unreasonably impacting your rights.

You are absolutely right. Diesel are filth spewing, carcinogenic and evil.
That's why we need to get rid of trucks, buses, trains, boats, diesel powered generators and any sort of plant and craft powered by it.
Because getting rid of only diesel powered motor cars is going to do nothing.
The usual "bloke down the pub" diesel bashing. :rolleyes:

jimgoose · 23-09-2015 4:46pm

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

You are absolutely right. Diesel are filth spewing, carcinogenic and evil.
That's why we need to get rid of trucks, buses, trains, boats, diesel powered generators and any sort of plant and craft powered by it.
Because getting rid of only diesel powered motor cars is going to do nothing.
The usual "bloke down the pub" diesel bashing. :rolleyes:

This Bloke Down The Pub would be for banning all of the above from city centres. The smell of the sodding things is utterly vile.

Marty McFly · 23-09-2015 4:48pm

jimgoose wrote: »

Same as that. You might as well be talking to the wall once Paddy gets De Chape Tax into his cliggín, though. :pac:

I drive a diesel but with expensive tax were do I fit in?

jimgoose · 23-09-2015 4:49pm

Marty McFly wrote: »

I drive a diesel but with expensive tax were do I fit in?

You're obviously a mutant. Away with you, to Smoker's Corner!

Tea 1000 · 23-09-2015 5:29pm

Everything should run on electricity. That comes from the socket in the corner of the room, and that's generally very clean!

colm_mcm · 23-09-2015 5:33pm

Tea 1000 wrote: »

Everything should run on electricity. That comes from the socket in the corner of the room, and that's generally very clean!

What's crazy is that it's cheaper to buy oil/gas to heat your house. There is very little done to convert houses to using electricity.
This is a situation where you don't need charging pints, batteries, range anxiety etc. they can't even manage this, so how are we expected to drive electric cars without artificial incentives.

dr.fuzzenstein · 23-09-2015 6:27pm

Tea 1000 wrote: »

Everything should run on electricity. That comes from the socket in the corner of the room, and that's generally very clean!

Absolutely. Now mention coal and turf being burnt for this clean electricity and get "Boooo, rabble, rabble, rabble!" as reply.
Further mention that coal produces far more waste material* AND radiation than nuclear and they go mental and say things like "Ireland! Green! Nuclear Illegal! Rabble rabble!" and then I like to mention we are using nuclear power already, brought to us by the kindness of our very good friends, the British.

So, we go green by burning turf like the 19th century is going out of fashion, stand tall and proud with our hands on our hearts, saying "No Nuclear Here!" whilst buying it on the sly from the Brits and then say "dem electricic cears, dey're so much cleaner than your deaaasel, I know, bloke down the pub told me!", but it's OK, because we have a few token windmills here. One day Ireland will be 100% wind powered. Should there be no wind, every citizen will be required to get out and push.
The above describes everything we excel at here, ignoring the real problem, finding a convenient scapegoat, repeated and prolonged bouts of back slapping whilst not doing a damn thing to solve the actual problem and shouting down anyone who might say "actually, now that I think of it..."

*
what you think those scrubbers do? The don't magic the dirt away into pixie dust

edit:
sorry, feeling ranty

Boskowski · 23-09-2015 6:44pm

Just to drive this off topic for a moment. Back home in Germany they now have a grid with a serious enough percentage of renewable energies, more than just a few token percent. Windmills, solar, dams etc. Can't remember the exact % figure but I think it was in the high 20ies.

Which apparently has its own problems. You have big surges from these sub grids for want of a better word when the sun shines when its windy or both, but you have equally hard drops when its not. So there are great swings in supply and demand from these sub grids on a permanent basis. When the sun shines all that surplus needs to go somewhere while if the weather is unfavourable you quickly have to ramp up other sources. Apparently it had the grid on the edge on more than one occasion this summer.

dr.fuzzenstein · 23-09-2015 6:55pm

Boskowski wrote: »

Just to drive this off topic for a moment. Back home in Germany they now have a grid with a serious enough percentage of renewable energies, more than just a few token percent. Windmills, solar, dams etc. Can't remember the exact % figure but I think it was in the high 20ies.

Which apparently has its own problems. You have big surges from these sub grids for want of a better word when the sun shines when its windy or both, but you have equally hard drops when its not. So there are great swings in supply and demand from these sub grids on a permanent basis. When the sun shines all that surplus needs to go somewhere while if the weather is unfavourable you quickly have to ramp up other sources. Apparently it had the grid on the edge on more than one occasion this summer.

Ireland is not quite there yet, but from what I heard from a friend who works in Moneypoint (and no, he doesn't work in the canteen), the same problem applies here.
A plant like that can't just adjust up and down by 20% in 5 minutes, they run at a constant speed and changes need to be planned for. They don't rev up and down like a car.
Of course the one thing that can react quick enough is Nuclear, which Germany is getting rid of due to the usual "Think of the Children!" hysterical bullsh*t perpetrated by the usual "I haven't got the faintest notion about nuclear power, but!" screaming ninnies that are prevalent everywhere and that governments like to listen to for some unknown reason.
This brings us back to VW and other car makers. Screaming ninnies scream "think of the children!", politicians say "Here I am to the rescue and banging the table like a boss!" and so engineers, who are the only people in this chain who actually know what they're doing, have to work out solutions to completely daft and braindead laws driven by populism, hysteria and ignorance.

Fiskar · 23-09-2015 7:07pm

What disgusts me about this is that if it were a French or UK manufacturer that did this, the Germans and that wagon Merkel would be crawling all over them, fining the firm until it went bankrupt. Other manufacturers should be crawling all over them.
Diesel as a fuel will be hard to recover from this, no one will lash out 30 grand of their own money on a car they may not re-sell in 3 or 4 years time.

Toyotafanboi · 23-09-2015 7:28pm

colm_mcm wrote: »

What's crazy is that it's cheaper to buy oil/gas to heat your house. There is very little done to convert houses to using electricity.
This is a situation where you don't need charging pints, batteries, range anxiety etc. they can't even manage this, so how are we expected to drive electric cars without artificial incentives.

With the way building regs are going, soon new houses will not really require any form of standalone heating 95% of the time.

colm_mcm · 23-09-2015 7:31pm

Yes, but people don't trade up their houses every few years and scrap the old ones

Toyotafanboi · 23-09-2015 7:41pm

colm_mcm wrote: »

Yes, but people don't trade up their houses every few years and scrap the old ones

In many of other countries they do, the average lifespan of a family home in Japan is around 25 years, for example. a bit like the way the irish love diesels, we also love a concrete house when in most instances timber frame is cheaper and better. Again, a bit like diesels, hopefully it's a mindset that can be reversed.

Lissavane · 23-09-2015 7:42pm

Fiskar wrote: »

What disgusts me about this is that if it were a French or UK manufacturer that did this, the Germans and that wagon Merkel would be crawling all over them, fining the firm until it went bankrupt. Other manufacturers should be crawling all over them.
Diesel as a fuel will be hard to recover from this, no one will lash out 30 grand of their own money on a car they may not re-sell in 3 or 4 years time.

"Rule Germania, Germania waives the rules", to coin a quip once used in relation to Britannia.

You can sing it too.

dr.fuzzenstein · 23-09-2015 7:56pm

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

In many of other countries they do, the average lifespan of a family home in Japan is around 25 years, for example. a bit like the way the irish love diesels, we also love a concrete house when in most instances timber frame is cheaper and better. Again, a bit like diesels, hopefully it's a mindset that can be reversed.

And in Germany in my hometown people live in houses built in the 16th and 17th century.
The city hall building has foundations that date back to the 11th century, as does the main church and the castle overlooking the town.
The town center school is a mixture and has bits dating from the 11th century up until the 18th century.
It's only Ireland that people think "the house is 20 years old, better tear it down and build another", same with cars, 10 years old, jesus, it's a deathtrap and must be scrapped.
You obviously haven't visited Germany. or Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, not to mention the eastern countries. We have bought into this idea "it's new and shiny, it HAS to be better!". Nonsense.
As for the concrete houses, I've seen them, those 70's and 80's bungalows. Tragic. The standard of houses here is (and always has been) extremely poor, compared to a continental house, I would say 4 out of 10.

it's the Big Green Fudge: Scrap everything and replace with shiny and new all the time. We will save 20% emissions! If you mention that building all this new crap will cause ten times more emissions, you will just get a filthy look. "How dare you go against the Green Gospel!"

josip · 23-09-2015 8:06pm

It's good that VW dared to go against the Green Gospel then.
All that scare mongering about NOX...

Skylinehead · 23-09-2015 8:35pm

Fiskar wrote: »

What disgusts me about this is that if it were a French or UK manufacturer that did this, the Germans and that wagon Merkel would be crawling all over them, fining the firm until it went bankrupt. Other manufacturers should be crawling all over them.
Diesel as a fuel will be hard to recover from this, no one will lash out 30 grand of their own money on a car they may not re-sell in 3 or 4 years time.

Why would the Germans be going after the French for breaking American regulations?

Lissavane · 23-09-2015 8:53pm

There's an interesting graph included in this FT article http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d375385a-61f4-11e5-9846-de406ccb37f2.html

German engineering is truly remarkable.

ThisRegard · 23-09-2015 9:05pm

Fiskar wrote: »

Diesel as a fuel will be hard to recover from this, no one will lash out 30 grand of their own money on a car they may not re-sell in 3 or 4 years time.

People are exaggerating greatly the affect this will have on diesel. Diesel hasn't stopped becoming an efficient fuel over night.

micosoft · 23-09-2015 9:24pm

ThisRegard wrote: »

People are exaggerating greatly the affect this will have on diesel. Diesel hasn't stopped becoming an efficient fuel over night.

But they stopped becoming clean (as they claimed to be) overnight...

micosoft · 23-09-2015 9:29pm

Fiskar wrote: »

What disgusts me about this is that if it were a French or UK manufacturer that did this, the Germans and that wagon Merkel would be crawling all over them, fining the firm until it went bankrupt. Other manufacturers should be crawling all over them.
Diesel as a fuel will be hard to recover from this, no one will lash out 30 grand of their own money on a car they may not re-sell in 3 or 4 years time.

Merkel is now responsible for Irish Debt, Greek economy and now it would appear Volkswagen cars emissions in the US! Is their no end to the possibilities that you could blame her for? She probably shot down that plane in Ukraine as it wasn't' an airbus so no German kickback. The entire Syrian refugee crisis was probably instigated by the Germans so they could charge the rest of us of accommodation in Germany. It never really ends does it!

ThisRegard · 23-09-2015 9:52pm

micosoft wrote: »

But they stopped becoming clean (as they claimed to be) overnight...

They stopped becoming clean as they claimed to be in America. People don't by diesel for their cleanliness.

Fiskar · 23-09-2015 10:09pm

Skylinehead wrote: »

Why would the Germans be going after the French for breaking American regulations?

Reputational damage, French cannot be trusted etc etc. Now it would appear the Germans cannot be trusted, but no one is jumping on their back. Wait and see if the Eu will go after the engine of the German economy, lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Gael23 · 23-09-2015 10:26pm

Will one of the conclusions from all this that it is not possible for car makers to comply with Euro 6 with current technology?

Eric Cartman · 23-09-2015 10:36pm

Gael23 wrote: »

Will one of the conclusions from all this that it is not possible for car makers to comply with Euro 6 with current technology?

not without going down in power, I'm fairly sure a 2.0 4 cylinder diesel can meet euro 6 , but not while putting out 170+ bhp out of it.

Fiskar · 23-09-2015 10:47pm

micosoft wrote: »

Merkel is now responsible for Irish Debt, Greek economy and now it would appear Volkswagen cars emissions in the US! Is their no end to the possibilities that you could blame her for? She probably shot down that plane in Ukraine as it wasn't' an airbus so no German kickback. The entire Syrian refugee crisis was probably instigated by the Germans so they could charge the rest of us of accommodation in Germany. It never really ends does it!

Think you said it all there, the Germans have their fingers in a lot of muddy pies at the moment

Western Pomise · 23-09-2015 11:05pm

Has any word come out yet on how long that VW have been fiddling the test results?

Special Circumstances · 23-09-2015 11:07pm

ThisRegard wrote: »

People are exaggerating greatly the affect this will have on diesel. Diesel hasn't stopped becoming an efficient fuel over night.

Petrol is penalised at approx 10c per litre for producing slightly more "deadly dangerous" photosynthesis fuel than diesel for the same amount of work.

If diesel is to be penalised for producing 10x to 40x the amount of nox then it quickly becomes uneconomical.

Quid pro quo Gormley's successors... surely that amount of unhealthy emissions is worth a 10x to 40x penalty?1x to 4x penalty? No? Or do they care more about licking the boots of German industry and less about the health of irish children, pensioners and those with respiratory conditions? (It's a rhetorical question don't worry)

Even being actually required to permanently use fap/adblue/urea at the correct concentration and with the engine re tuned to reduce nox and particulates may close the gap between the two. Imagine if diesels were actually required to have a working emissions system (dpf etc) for nct???

robbie99 · 23-09-2015 11:18pm

Western Pomise wrote: »

Has any word come out yet on how long that VW have been fiddling the test results?

As far back as 2009.

5W30 · 23-09-2015 11:22pm

VW were truly living the "no smoke no poke" life :pac:

jimgoose · 23-09-2015 11:25pm

josip wrote: »

It's good that VW dared to go against the Green Gospel then.
All that scare mongering about NOX...

No-one gives a monkey's fcuk about NOx here, least of all John Gormley!

JoeCole26 · 23-09-2015 11:39pm

Do you reckon all this will have a knock-on effect to the price of new VW in the coming months/years. In the market for new VW but wondering if it is time to sit tight to see how all this pans out. I,myself, can't see it affecting price of new cars in a forecourt down the country.

Atlantic Dawn · 24-09-2015 12:06am

If the figures here are proved to have been fiddled like the US then it's likely existing registered low motor tax cars on the road will all hold their value as VW will be unable to pass the tests with the current engines even with software upgrade at the same CO2 level meaning the motor tax will rise on the new stock for the near future. A €50 motor tax rise could mean someone not buying a €25k car in this country, people are that crazy.

Leonard Hofstadter · 24-09-2015 1:19am

Well for a start the Government should increase the tax on diesel fuel (never going to happen in an election year I know), diesel produces 13% more CO2 per litre burned than petrol.

Your average small to medium sized petrol car will do about 40 mpg in real world driving (no matter how much the brochure wants to tell you otherwise), while a diesel does about 50 mpg. So, the average diesel is about 25% more fuel efficient BUT the CO2 reduction is only about 8.5% (a petrol doing 40 mpg pollutes 164 g/km, a 50 mpg diesel pollutes 150 g/km, by comparison a diesel doing 40 mpg pollutes 187 g/km or 23 g/km more than a petrol doing the exact same mpg). Despite this glaring difference between the mpg improvement and the CO2 improvement, diesel has less duty applied to it and as a result is often 10 cent a litre less expensive (and it's been more than that recently).

That is completely and utterly wrong no matter how much diesel fans will want to claim otherwise. I don't mind commercial vehicles or farming vehicles paying less fuel duty in order to make diesel more affordable for them (because there is no alternative) but under no circumstances should the Government be subsidising private motorists (who make up the overwhelming majority of vehicles on our roads) to buy a fuel with a higher carbon content (per litre burned) not to mention all the well known health ill affects.

A clampdown on VRT and motor tax also needs to be done, bringing back some fairness to the system rather than completely screwing petrol over, and making an anyway decent petrol too expensive to buy new and utterly utterly undesirable second-hand. We could look to the forthcoming UK system from 2017 for inspiration (where almost every new car will pay £140 a year in VED save the first year no matter what the CO2 rating is) on how to correct the glaring inequalities with the motor tax system in particular.

The other thing that's worth pointing out is that even if the 'clean diesels' were as clean as claimed and actually were compliant with the relevant EU legislation on Particulates and NOx, they would STILL not be as clean as a Euro 6 petrol on either.... in fact a correctly working Euro 6 diesel with no cheat systems or any other funny business going on is only required to be as kind to our lungs as a Euro 4 petrol, and there were Euro 4 petrols available as recently as 2001. So, a properly functioning non-cheating Euro 6 diesel is still 10 years behind where petrol engines were required to be on NOx and PM.

Again, that is totally and utterly wrong and the EU shameless insistence on CO2 reduction above all else (which has never happened in the real world anyway) and ignoring the Science and the well known health affects of diesel engines on human health has cost people their lives.

What is terrifying is that because politicians know so little about engines and engineering and Science in general, they will no doubt come up with some utterly daft and unworkable solution to this problem. While I would obviously like to see a decisive shift back towards petrol engines, I do worry that with the unworkable and unrealistic CO2 targets not going anywhere any time soon, the laws of unintended consequences will set in and we will be left with even more downsized and complex petrol engines which will have all the reliability issues diesels have given and will just cost the average motorist even more money (especially in a country like Ireland where servicing is very much seen as an optional extra and a 'waste of money').

Cookie_Monster · 24-09-2015 1:27am

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Ireland is not quite there yet, but from what I heard from a friend who works in Moneypoint (and no, he doesn't work in the canteen), the same problem applies here.
A plant like that can't just adjust up and down by 20% in 5 minutes, they run at a constant speed and changes need to be planned for. They don't rev up and down like a car.
Of course the one thing that can react quick enough is Nuclear, which Germany is getting rid of due to the usual "Think of the Children!" hysterical bullsh*t perpetrated by the usual "I haven't got the faintest notion about nuclear power, but!" screaming ninnies that are prevalent everywhere and that governments like to listen to for some unknown reason.
This brings us back to VW and other car makers. Screaming ninnies scream "think of the children!", politicians say "Here I am to the rescue and banging the table like a boss!" and so engineers, who are the only people in this chain who actually know what they're doing, have to work out solutions to completely daft and braindead laws driven by populism, hysteria and ignorance.

they're getting rid of it because of the ridiculously high cost of generating power, not from a think of the childers view

Damien360 · 24-09-2015 7:40am

I am here is California for training for a few weeks and as you would expect it is big news.

The US take on this from US colleagues, news daily :

The VW with that engine is now technically illegal to drive anywhere in the state of california and the locals, even the very smart ones, are worried they could get pulled by the cops for this, however unlikely we laugh at that notion.

The california state is going to sue VW based on per vehicle fine. That is guaranteed. The amount per offence was in the low thousands. The rest of the US will follow suit.

There is genuine concern as to the resale value of these existing cars and a class action suit is coming based on advertisement of best resale value which no longer exists. Silly we say but it is gathering pace.

The new Passat was to be launched next week here and is effectively a dead duck. Untouchable regardless of engine. That costs VW money. There is no seperation here between which engine is the problem. All VW's are lumped with this bad perception regardless of petrol or diesel.

To put all this in perspective. I had a look for giggles at the new Mustang. 2014 special is 500bhp plus and is road legal. The 2015 special (very nice new dash) is 400bhp plus and is not yet road legal in california. It is very likely it will be. I am betting the average car here pumps out a lot of stuff that is not good for the body (not NOX of course) and nobody sees that as strange. They are telling the truth (appartently) about their emmisions. So it is all about perception.

5W30 · 24-09-2015 9:02am

Now I wonder if any other manufacturer is going to create a recall for some made up "issue" when in reality they are patching the ECU to remove such an emission cheat...

dr.fuzzenstein · 24-09-2015 9:57am

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

they're getting rid of it because of the ridiculously high cost of generating power, not from a think of the childers view

And its the most idiotic decision ever!
Now Germany will have to generate power from a crumbling, decrepit coal power station network, some of which burn "braunkohle", that's turf to you and me.
Throw wind into that, and you'll have a highly unstable grid. But of course that's only half the story, because Germany will simply very quietly purchase nuclear power from its neighbours.
The parallels to Ireland are almost spooky.

jimgoose · 24-09-2015 9:59am

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

...Now Germany will have to generate power from a crumbling, decrepit coal power station network, some of which burn "braunkohle"...

Achtung! Das Brokenhole ist burnen leik das Scheisser!!

Tea 1000 · 24-09-2015 10:05am

micosoft wrote: »

But they stopped becoming clean (as they claimed to be) overnight...

But people don't give a flying f**k about that unless it affects their pocket somehow.

JoeCole26 wrote: »

Do you reckon all this will have a knock-on effect to the price of new VW in the coming months/years. In the market for new VW but wondering if it is time to sit tight to see how all this pans out. I,myself, can't see it affecting price of new cars in a forecourt down the country.

I'd say if anything, there'll be a price increase. I'd buy now.

dr.fuzzenstein · 24-09-2015 10:13am

jimgoose wrote: »

Achtung! Das Brokenhole ist burnen leik das Scheisser!!

Das Paddy hat die richtig Idea! We do like zis.
The only thing missing is Germany making nuclear illegal and requesting the French to filter out all the electrons from the grid that came from nuclear. You think I'm joking? This was a request made by some Irish politician "doing something"
They'd be using the same electron sieves we are using, they filter out the nuclear British electrons, because they are slightly bigger.

Stallingrad · 24-09-2015 10:28am

Tea 1000 wrote: »

But people don't give a flying f**k about that unless it affects their pocket somehow.

I'd say if anything, there'll be a price increase. I'd buy now.

I doubt that, if anything better deals may be coming as VW try to claw back any damaged market share. I doubt price will reduce, but expect free upgrades and other incentives.

EPA says Volkswagen cheated on emissions with 482,000 diesel cars

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