[sgiitk]

A new interpretation of Vorsprung durch Technik except this type of technology was not expected from them. I think more than fining them ban all car sales for three to six months from the entire family.

[Hayek]

I have always had a prejudice against dirty, smelly Diesel engines. This just reinforces my prejudice. Would be really surprised if VW were the only manufacturer faking results - the odds are high that more skeletons will tumble out. If that kills the diesel revolution (triggered by obsession with CO2 emissions despite diesels emitting much more particulates which are far more harmful), that would be great. Frankly, in India, where particulate matter concentrations are insanely high, a complete ban on diesels for cars and massive restrictions on diesel trucks entering cities is needed

[arunphilip]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

I think more than fining them ban all car sales for three to six months from the entire family.

Emotionally, I agree with you, since this does not appear to be accident, oversight or negligence; but instead appears to be a calculated strategy.

Legally and ethically, I do not know if the punishment has to be determined by the 'crime' in isolation, or the intent behind it. It could also be that the intent will influence the quantum of punishment.

If the relevant authorities decide to punish Volkswagen for both the intent and the crime, then I would agree with your suggestion. In fact, they shouldn't stop there, but carry out the following punitive measures:

1. Ban sales for a duration (as you've suggested).
2. Do a public ad campaign on the lines of what Australia make Coca Cola do, paid for by VW.
3. Ensure that parties uninvolved in the cheating but affected by the ban are not affected for the duration of the ban (e.g. dedicated VW dealers' employees should not lose pay)
4. These punitive measures would be in addition to the remedial measures that VW will also have to perform.

[Chillout]

I would be worried if I were to buy a Volkswagen or Audi right now. Its going to take a real long time for them to recover from this.

I am sure we will soon come across sales of certain divisions like what Ford did. It would be interesting to see who will be the buyers.

Whatever small interest I had in their cars is lost now after this fiasco. Its definitely tough days ahead for this group.

[Parth46]

This is just blatant cheating by a large manufacturer hell bent on trying to circumvent the laws, all for extra margins and profits.

I might be taking this a bit too far but instances like this will certainly hasten the demise of the car industry as we know it in it's current form.

Folks like Elon Musk and Larry Page will definitely consider this as further proof that Hybrids/Electrics that hardly generate any pollution and use clean energies are the need of the hour. The internal combustion tech dependent on dinosaur juice has gone on too long and maybe the time is now ripe for a significant electric revolution.

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by Parth46

This is just blatant cheating by a large manufacturer hell bent on trying to circumvent the laws, all for extra margins and profits.

I might be taking this a bit too far but instances like this will certainly hasten the demise of the car industry as we know it in it's current form.

Folks like Elon Musk and Larry Page will definitely consider this as further proof that Hybrids/Electrics that hardly generate any pollution and use clean energies are the need of the hour. The internal combustion tech dependent on dinosaur juice has gone on too long and maybe the time is now ripe for a significant electric revolution.

They did this intentionally to kill off the ICE. So that Tesla, Porsche, GM and Nissan could succeed with their electric cars.

[ambivalent_98]

After going through a lot of news items I understand VW fudged the pollution results and tried to cheat their way through the strict US emission laws. That is really bad and surprising to see from such a large corporation. Still my questions remain
1) How was this caught ?
2) How is this going to impact India ? Will we see some sort of recall for VW diesels sold from the very first since I think they started in 2009 ?
3) Do we in India have ways and means to test this because if I remember in US to get a pollution clearance there is a dedicated facility of the DMV. Here we just have a person who stick a sensor up a tail pipe and probes something in the engine bay on the side of a road or in a petrol station ?

[StarScream]

Originally Posted by ambivalent_98

After going through a lot of news items I understand VW fudged the pollution results and tried to cheat their way through the strict US emission laws. That is really bad and surprising to see from such a large corporation. Still my questions remain
1) How was this caught ?
2) How is this going to impact India ? Will we see some sort of recall for VW diesels sold from the very first since I think they started in 2009 ?
3) Do we in India have ways and means to test this because if I remember in US to get a pollution clearance there is a dedicated facility of the DMV. Here we just have a person who stick a sensor up a tail pipe and probes something in the engine bay on the side of a road or in a petrol station ?

1) from the vox.com link I posted on the previous page:
The problem was only uncovered by an independent group, the International Council on Clean Transportation, which wanted to investigate why there was such a discrepancy between laboratory tests and real-road performance for several of VW's diesel cars in Europe. So they worked with researchers at West Virginia University, who stuck a probe up the exhaust pipe of VW's clean diesel cars and drove them from San Diego to Seattle.

2) I see no impact on India. Our emission standards are nowhere close to U.S./Europe standards. That kind of NOx scrubbing technology is not even used in cars sold here, partly because our diesel is of a poorer quality than is needed for those types of technologies.

3) Immaterial given point 2 above.

[arunphilip]

Diesel Exhaust Fluid - Some Background
Here's a bit of background about the technology involved (not in faking the emissions, but the emission control technology).

Diesel exhaust fluid is used to reduce NOx emissions in diesel engine emissions into nitrogen gas and steam, by a process called selective catalytic reduction (SCR). It consists of a urea-based fluid (going by the trademark AdBlue) that is stored in a separate tank, which is injected into the exhaust stream to work its magic. SCR is one of the ways of cleaning up diesel exhaust, the others being a diesel particulate filter (DPF) and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR).

The Current Cheating Claim
VW claimed that this specific 2.0 TDI engine was clean enough that there was no need to provide this AdBlue system.

Originally Posted by ambivalent_98

How is this going to impact India ? Will we see some sort of recall for VW diesels sold from the very first since I think they started in 2009?

Well, given we have many more buses and trucks that spew out far worse pollution, let me tell you how this will play out in India:

• Our governmental agencies will start a major witch-hunt against VW, and potentially all car manufacturers, on the basis of this episode.
• Those manufacturers will grin and bear it, given the market potential of India (i.e. customers to buy their cars, not roads to drive it on!)
• Our government will wake up to the opportunity to levy an additional tax (to promote anti-pollution drives), and we consumers will face potential car cost increase (since manufacturers will need to improve emission norms).

And those buses and trucks I mentioned? They'll continue to ply unmolested, merrily spewing out thick black smoke, to give our lungs the appearance of a nicely done kebab! Apologies for my cynicism/realism!

[rangan]

This is a question of credibility now. I was considering the Vento as one the options, now it is out of contention.

What next? "We lied that the airbags work?"

[Jeeper1941]

Originally Posted by Parth46

Folks like Elon Musk and Larry Page will definitely consider this as further proof that Hybrids/Electrics that hardly generate any pollution and use clean energies are the need of the hour. The internal combustion tech dependent on dinosaur juice has gone on too long and maybe the time is now ripe for a significant electric revolution.

Cars that run exclusively on electricity stored in batteries aren't cars in the full sense of the word, since they can't take you anywhere you want, anytime you want, which is the baseline requirement from a car.

Also, the battery technology relies on Lithium, which is sourced via open-cut mining which is by far the most destructive form of mining. And a Lithium Ion battery has more Graphite than Lithium, also sourced from traditional mining.

There is no such thing as "clean energy." We can get "cleaner energy" but we will always be drilling into the ground in some fashion, even if it is just to get the copper for the generator that we turn in a hydroelectric plant. Photo-voltaic solar cells are manufactured from rare-earth elements as well.

Hydrogen cars make much more sense than electric cars, it's really sad that many of the major automakers are only testing this idea and not seriously considering mainstream manufacture of hydrogen vehicles.

Also; some very rough figures which I calculated now:

Efficiency of fossil fuel power station: 40%.
Efficiency of petrol engine: 20%.
This is the only place any "green benefits" of an electric car can come from.

Reverse the figure: In a car 80% of the energy is wasted. Using "fossil electricity", 60% is wasted. Hence there is a reduction in waste (i.e. unnecessary CO2 emission) of 20/80, i.e. 25%.

That's it - power a car off fossil derived electricity and reduce CO2 emissions by 25%.

That's a very rough calculation, the real number may be 20% or 35%, but it's not earth shattering. The sad fact is that when electricity is generated from fossil fuels, there are better ways to spend your money (to save the planet) than buying an electric car.

However, if the power produced was from nuclear energy, then that would be an altogether different matter.

[StarScream]

Originally Posted by rangan

This is a question of credibility now. I was considering the Vento as one the options, now it is out of contention.

What next? "We lied that the airbags work?"

That's a bit of an over reaction. They still make good cars and are leaders in innovation in certain segments (Polo/Vento TSI). And look at it in perspective, the GM ignition switch fiasco led to people dying, at least that didn't happen here. This looks bad and unethical but really worse has happened in this industry.

Also, if you choose a Honda over a VW then they already did the airbag thing!

Or another option, don't buy diesel, buy petrol - it's the lesser of two evils.

[RoadSurfer]

Originally Posted by wilful

Looks like this has affected them big time.
They have taken a 16 billion dollar hit in valuation as their share price has taken a hammering. And it appears their woes could compound.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/b...w/49044133.cms

And now auto component manufacturers will have to bear the brunt of VW's misdeeds. Motherson Sumi Systems stock fall 9% yesterday and currently is 7% down. VW is by far its biggest customer (accounting for 44% of revenue against Hyundai which is at 6% being second).

http://www.financialexpress.com/arti...w-woes/139336/

[The Rationalist]

VAG should be investigated in other markets and if found to be cheats, the group should be split into different divisions. The ones who colluded for this should be put behind bars. The audacity and the sheer disregard for law is appalling. This one is gonna be one big mess from which VAG would find very difficult to escape without scathing injuries. Feel sorry for the share holders though.

[i74js]

Originally Posted by Jeeper1941

Also; some very rough figures which I calculated now:

Efficiency of fossil fuel power station: 40%.
Efficiency of petrol engine: 20%.
This is the only place any "green benefits" of an electric car can come from.

Reverse the figure: In a car 80% of the energy is wasted. Using "fossil electricity", 60% is wasted. Hence there is a reduction in waste (i.e. unnecessary CO2 emission) of 20/80, i.e. 25%.

That's it - power a car off fossil derived electricity and reduce CO2 emissions by 25%.

You have missed out on:
- Conversion efficiency of battery operated cars (electrical to chemical and chemical to mechanical)

The resultant operational efficiency of battery operated vehicles is still very poor. A rosy picture is portrayed through reduced vehicle weight and compromise at several fronts against liquid fuel driven cars. Most of the technology research is pointing towards Hydrogen as the fuel of future which has the capacity to change the mobility scenarios across globe and not battery driven cars.

- Duty cycle of batteries (standard duty cycle of present generation batteries is about 800, most of the new age products are able to touch 1000 cycle mark i.e. 3 - 5 years max)

- Disposal / recycle issues with batteries

Battery driven vehicles are facing challenges around:

- Generation of higher torque for commercial goods usage
- Reliability in longer run
- Disposal of waste generated through such operations (imagine if large portion of present generation cars are replaced by battery driven cars)

There is new experiment being carried out by creating a charged road which provides possibility of cars getting continuous energy from the road surface (similar to Samsung's NFC) on which they move resulting in no requirement of battery and better conversion efficiency and ability to drive anywhere (provided there is that kind of road). It also can enable control of vehicle movement / restriction in certain areas - you may call it something in its very initial phase but yes research is on.

Cheers