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Volkswagen Is Ordered to Recall Nearly 500,000 Vehicles Over Emissions Software

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#461
I am not sure if the diesel engines can be fixed.

I am not sure if the VW reputation can be fixed.

Could they offer to convert all these cars to EVs? Let TESLA develope a power train (battery, electric motor and electronics) to replace the diesel in all effected cars? Probably not possible.

VW might have to go the way of GM and start new.

Of the brands probably only Porsche, Bentley and Bugatti can remain intact.
 
#462
Saw this come across my tweet stream, not sure of the source:

PlanMaestro_2015-Oct-06.jpg
 
#463
VW is too big and too important to Germany to fail. It has at least one get out of jail free card. It will get bailed out at least once if it needs it. Porsche has too much brand equity to go way. Even if it goes to the grave someone will buy it out of bankruptcy. Say a German/Austrian/Swiss billionaire that wants to start a BEV company.
 
#465
I own a TDI (for my son) and I have enjoyed this thread. The level of intelligence and maturity on the Tesla forums is a breath of fresh air. I say this as I watch the TDI forums. The amount of TDI owners who are standing behind VW and claiming the EPA is unfair, that they'll drive their cars and care nothing of people's health, etc, etc, etc, is alarming. Over 7,000 posts at Volkswagen's Clean Air Act violations on 2009+ TDIs spark huge recall, investigations - Page 481 - TDIClub Forums

Anyways, I got fed up and posted this below on the TDI forum:

"I've been watching this thread since day one. I am from the group of folks who feel cheated and angry. I'll never buy another VW. So you know, I worked as a mechanic for VW and Audi for many years. What amazes me are those here who are apologists for VW. There is no two ways about it. If you bought your car new, they lied to you and took an extra (approx TDI cost) $5,000 of your money and they laughed all the way to the bank. How you can think this is OK is beyond my ability to comprehend.

Finally, I would like to point out. If a person commits murder there are different degrees. A crime of passion, where the murderer is enraged and loses his senses, becomes momentarily crazy is the end of the spectrum by which the courts give some understanding and leniency. But, the most severe of murder sentences are the cold blooded, premeditated criminals. "Premeditated" crime is the key word here as those who will premeditate in advance and carry out their crime in the future will full knowledge of what they are doing, are criminals who have no conscience, no remorse. We call these people psychopaths, these people are the ones that are locked up, never to be trusted in society. What you have in the VW management that executed this fraud is exactly this behavior. It is premeditated crime that stole your money and continued with this crime year after year. How or why you feel you can trust them or even consider another VW is boggling to me. These are not people of conscience who want to "win your trust", they are scared, they can see they may have destroyed this company to the point of bankruptcy and when they say they want your trust back, they want more of your money is what they want. They want your money to save their own asses and then they can be in a good position to carry on with cheating you once again (they'll just be smarter about not getting caught). "
__________________
2010 Jetta TDI, 60,000 miles. 2013 Tesla S, 69,000 miles.
 
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#466
Johan said:
They could rise like a Phoenix from the ashes from this scandal. A crisis is a golden opportunity for transformation. WV could become the first big ICE maker to make the transition in to the next generation of car makers.
Click to expand...
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill

I agree, this is a time when they could conceivably have nothing to lose.

- - - Updated - - -

Johann Koeber said:
Could they offer to convert all these cars to EVs? Let TESLA develope a power train (battery, electric motor and electronics) to replace the diesel in all effected cars? Probably not possible.

VW might have to go the way of GM and start new.
Click to expand...
When you ponder how Tesla started from nothing and did what they did on what was really a shoe-string budget compared to the money spent by the big guys, VW would appear to have an advantage even with the fines and bad press. They're big. They have engineering depth. They have decades of experience and a huge supplier network. Firing the ICE guys leaves room for new thinking and new expertise.

I don't see them dropping electric drivetrains in existing non-compliant diesels cars, but I could imagine them starting from the ground up like Tesla did... or even do a deal with Tesla to license some technology or provide large scale manufacturing. Maybe there are people at Tesla pondering the Chinese motto about crisis and opportunity... there might be some in VW too.
 
#468
beeeerock said:
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill

I agree, this is a time when they could conceivably have nothing to lose.

- - - Updated - - -


When you ponder how Tesla started from nothing and did what they did on what was really a shoe-string budget compared to the money spent by the big guys, VW would appear to have an advantage even with the fines and bad press. They're big. They have engineering depth. They have decades of experience and a huge supplier network. Firing the ICE guys leaves room for new thinking and new expertise.

I don't see them dropping electric drivetrains in existing non-compliant diesels cars, but I could imagine them starting from the ground up like Tesla did... or even do a deal with Tesla to license some technology or provide large scale manufacturing. Maybe there are people at Tesla pondering the Chinese motto about crisis and opportunity... there might be some in VW too.
Click to expand...
I can only see this if the culture of the management changed completely. But this would require getting rid of the "old guard" who is still entrenched in VW. A wholesale change in VW might happen should they go bankrupt and the German government requires a complete restructuring, beginning with an exit door for all the current upper management.
 
#469
gene said:
Anyways, I got fed up and posted this below on the TDI forum:
Click to expand...
Oh man, I hope you wear Nomex underwear...! :biggrin:

But you haven't said anything that isn't right.

- - - Updated - - -

gene said:
I can only see this if the culture of the management changed completely. But this would require getting rid of the "old guard" who is still entrenched in VW. A wholesale change in VW might happen should they go bankrupt and the German government requires a complete restructuring, beginning with an exit door for all the current upper management.
Click to expand...
I agree. But I also think that is possible at this point. I can see the Germans taking this very personally and going to great pains to fix it. The other consideration that we'll learn as time goes on is, how widespread was the deceit? I have to think it was quite compartmentalized as it was too big to risk a leak. And it never did leak - they were found out from the outside. That could mean the rotten apple didn't contaminate too much of the barrel.
 
#470
beeeerock said:
- - - Updated - - -


I agree. But I also think that is possible at this point. I can see the Germans taking this very personally and going to great pains to fix it. The other consideration that we'll learn as time goes on is, how widespread was the deceit? I have to think it was quite compartmentalized as it was too big to risk a leak. And it never did leak - they were found out from the outside. That could mean the rotten apple didn't contaminate too much of the barrel.
Click to expand...
Even if very few people in VW knew of the "cheat", that there were few rotten apples, there must have been a culture at VW that made these criminals feel their actions were acceptable. So, i think the clean-out will have to extend to a larger radius beyond these bad apples.

BTW, I've been through Kamloops many times on my way to Inuvik, NWT. I really enjoy your part of BC.
 
#471
gene said:
"Premeditated" crime is the key word here as those who will premeditate in advance and carry out their crime in the future will full knowledge of what they are doing, are criminals who have no conscience, no remorse. We call these people psychopaths, these people are the ones that are locked up, never to be trusted in society. What you have in the VW management that executed this fraud is exactly this behavior. It is premeditated crime that stole your money and continued with this crime year after year. How or why you feel you can trust them or even consider another VW is boggling to me.
Click to expand...

Almost all corporations behave in exactly the same manner. VW just got caught. This is why you need strict regulations on corporate behaviour and not turn corporations into people as the U.S. Supreme Court just did. If you do turn them into people, then they need to have a fixed life-span of maybe thirty years, and they need the ability to be put in jail (limited communications and no gross income for a period of time).
 
#473
jerry33 said:
Almost all corporations behave in exactly the same manner. VW just got caught. This is why you need strict regulations on corporate behaviour and not turn corporations into people as the U.S. Supreme Court just did. If you do turn them into people, then they need to have a fixed life-span of maybe thirty years, and they need the ability to be put in jail (limited communications and no gross income for a period of time).
Click to expand...

(bolded part my emphasis)

I understand the thinking and reaction that leads to the "need for strict regulations". I disagree though that fundamentally that is a solution - it's a Band-Aid. I come from the school of thought that holds that among people and entities of good will and intent, no amount of laws are needed; among people and entities of ill intent, no amount of laws are adequate. (To be accurate, among people of good will and intent, all you really need is context).

At least in the US, it looks to me like we are turning increasingly to more laws, more regulation, as a mechanism for sustaining society. It may take awhile, but more laws and more regulations are just a good source of income for the legal profession; they don't stop people from behaving badly - they just more specifically define the edges so that people skirting the edges have a clearer mark for what they need to navigate around.

Or in dynamic system terms, we're attempting to apply simple solutions to complex problems.
 
#474
adiggs said:
(bolded part my emphasis)

I understand the thinking and reaction that leads to the "need for strict regulations". I disagree though that fundamentally that is a solution - it's a Band-Aid. I come from the school of thought that holds that among people and entities of good will and intent, no amount of laws are needed; among people and entities of ill intent, no amount of laws are adequate. (To be accurate, among people of good will and intent, all you really need is context).

At least in the US, it looks to me like we are turning increasingly to more laws, more regulation, as a mechanism for sustaining society. It may take awhile, but more laws and more regulations are just a good source of income for the legal profession; they don't stop people from behaving badly - they just more specifically define the edges so that people skirting the edges have a clearer mark for what they need to navigate around.

Or in dynamic system terms, we're attempting to apply simple solutions to complex problems.
Click to expand...
The core problem is that corporations are psychopaths. They have no empathy and their only concern is making money. Some of the individuals working for corporations may have "good will and intent" but that has no value to the corporation.
Rules and regulations are vital to the functioning of society; both corporations and individuals who may lack empathy.
Corporations depend as much on these rules and regulations as everyone else. Corporations need to know the acceptable boundaries of behavior and also rely on the rule of law to enforce contracts, etc.
You may not like rules and regulations when they interfere with making money but they are necessary. Regulations are not "simple" and require constant monitoring and revisions. It's naive to think that we could live in a world without rules and rely only on the good will and intent of all actors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_(film)
Why Corporations Are Psychotic | Psychology Today
Here's a good one from Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2013/04/25/the-disturbing-link-between-psychopathy-and-leadership/
 
#475
adiggs said:
(bolded part my emphasis)

I understand the thinking and reaction that leads to the "need for strict regulations". I disagree though that fundamentally that is a solution - it's a Band-Aid. I come from the school of thought that holds that among people and entities of good will and intent, no amount of laws are needed; among people and entities of ill intent, no amount of laws are adequate. (To be accurate, among people of good will and intent, all you really need is context).

At least in the US, it looks to me like we are turning increasingly to more laws, more regulation, as a mechanism for sustaining society. It may take awhile, but more laws and more regulations are just a good source of income for the legal profession; they don't stop people from behaving badly - they just more specifically define the edges so that people skirting the edges have a clearer mark for what they need to navigate around.

Or in dynamic system terms, we're attempting to apply simple solutions to complex problems.
Click to expand...

????? So what's the solution?... place no restrictions on NOx emissions and let natural selection sort it out?

It's a romantic notion that people and corporations generally want to do the right thing and laws aren't necessary but it's certainly not borne out by reality. Seat belt laws increase the use of seat belts, helmet laws increase the use of helmets and DUI laws decrease the number of DUIs and regulations on NOx emissions reduces smog.

'If men were angels then no government would be necessary.'

It's not like we ended up with regulations just to have them... we just got tired of rivers so polluted that they caught fire... and having air so thick with smog you could practically cut it with a knife...
 
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#476
Knock-on consequences?

Audi was set to enter F1 and would have saved the Red Bull team(s). Pretty certain that idea is dead now and Red Bull may withdraw completely as they have no engine supply for 2016. F1 has been massive exposure for Red Bull the last few years.

OK, back to the VW core discussion......
 
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