Volkwagen flames out

[Fabbs]

buy stock?

Not yet.
Like with BP, give it some more time to truly bottom out.

[Wild Cobra]

found it:

When I worked at the EPA, finding these defeat devices was “part of the job.” We never had any trouble with the Japanese, but all the other manufacturers were doing highly suspect things. With microprocessor engine controls in every car, it is very hard to find what is going on.

Once, a VW was in the middle of failing a 100,000-mile driving test (pollution devices had to work for 100,000 miles) and suddenly caught fire, so the test had to be restarted. EPA engineers joked they were sure they saw a broken “Molotov tail” on the road next to the car. There were some other VW shenanigans, but they were too complicated to explain. I owned a VW at the time, but it was falling apart constantly so I had no sympathy whatever for VW.

Chrysler got caught doing something like VW, but was caught in testing, so it paid a smaller fine.

Ford lied like crazy and the EPA director had a big photo over his desk of the million $ check for a fine they had to pay. They were also ordered to “behave cooperatively” as opposed to the snarling obnoxious behavior they had formerly exhibited.

I also caught Ford in a defeat device and had to write a memo to them asking for written info instead of the lying (but sooo friendly) PR guys they sent out. They never answered, so my letter was used in court as proof that we had tried but they hadn’t cooperated.

GM was no better, but they were cleverer so we couldn’t catch them in testing. Enforcement division out in the field got them.

Honestly, it was just an “EPA doesn’t tell US what to do” at ude — it would have been cheaper for them if they had followed the Japanese example and just made clean cars to begin with.

http://cleantechnica.com/2015/09/22/...auto-industry/

Weren't most of these examples dealing with mileage rather than emissions?

[DMC]

At least it's not an American automobile company, else we'd have to bail them out soon so that 7 billion would come from taxpayers to some anonymous en y. That's just another way of moving money from the middle class to the Illuminati.

Hey the automaker was fined big time
Hey they are struggling, going to close a plant
Hey congress is doing a bail out
Hey the automaker is doing well again
Hey I can't pay my mortgage because my taxes are too high

'Murica

[Brazil]

At least it's not an American automobile company, else we'd have to bail them out soon so that 7 billion would come from taxpayers to some anonymous en y. That's just another way of moving money from the middle class to the Illuminati.

Hey the automaker was fined big time
Hey they are struggling, going to close a plant
Hey congress is doing a bail out
Hey the automaker is doing well again
Hey I can't pay my mortgage because my taxes are too high

'Murica

that's so true

[Winehole23]

VW, Porsche, Audi

1 in 6 Germans works in the auto industry

All of a sudden, Volkswagen has become a bigger downside risk for the German economy than the Greek debt crisis," ING chief economist Carsten Brzeski told Reuters.

"If Volkswagen's sales were to plunge in North America in the coming months, this would not only have an impact on the company, but on the German economy as a whole," he added.
Volkswagen sold nearly 600,000 cars in the United States last year, around 6 percent of its 9.5 million global sales.


The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the company could face penalties of up to $18 billion, more than its entire operating profit for last year.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...0RN27S20150923

[RandomGuy]

USA TDI owners are suing, maybe a class action suit. $7B may not be nearly enough. $18B was a number kicked around, just to pay the govt fines.

I heard one owner straight up ask for her money back in a radio interview. That adds up real quick at 20-40k a pop.

[RandomGuy]

[german economy potentially threatened by VW problems]http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...0RN27S20150923

Saw that. The German government is announcing its own probe too, if I am not mistaken.

[RandomGuy]

Yeah they will be fine. They've already set aside 7 billion to pay off the govt and fired the CEO. Only question is where will the stock bottom out.

This is not a case of just hiding something, or covering up a mistake. This is active deception of millions of people, potentially across multiple countries.

I highly doubt they will be able to mitigate this anytime soon. Much of VW's sales in the US were predicated on the fact that their diesels were "clean".

Further the Justice Department may actually bring up criminal charges.
http://www.economist.com/news/leader...-different-car

In a speech this month, America’s deputy attorney-general, Sally Yates, said that from now on, fining businesses would take second place to pursuing criminal and civil charges against individuals. An accused firm will no longer get credit for co-operating with investigations (as VW says it will) unless it gives the feds the names of every manager or employee involved in wrongdoing, and seeks to gather and submit evidence of their personal responsibility. VW is a test of this new approach. But to avoid su ions of being tougher on foreign firms—as were raised in the BP Deepwater case and in recent banking settlements—the American authorities should also prosecute culpable GM managers.

[m>s]

Perfect timing considering they just expanded operations into Russia

[m>s]

The source of the usa asshurt:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...market-decline


uou only get caught if you piss off the wrong people. Otherwise it's all business as usual.

[DarrinS]

How to tell when your neighbor is a progressive

[boutons_deux]

Have a '13 Passat & '14 Q7 TDI; To this point the Audi is in the clear

Audi confesses to same fraud in 2.1M vehicles

[boutons_deux]

BMW?

M-B?

[boutons_deux]

for Republicans, this situation epically ties them into knots and this is where Democrats have a platinum opportunity to destroy so many Right wing memes.

1. It proves the liberal assertion that without regulations, companies will do anything for profits.

2. It validates the EPA's existence, why it's budget should be expanded, not cut.

3. It illustrates the public good of public universities.

4. Any public discussion invariably leads to discussion of carbon emissions, climate science, and thus man made climate change, or at least it's too damned close for anyone on the Right to go there.

5. It showcases the risks of privatizing social security, especially how disastrous it'd be where deregulation encourages greedy corporate behavior.

How do we know this situation has the Right scared out of its mind? Because this is what we've heard from them so far:

**crickets**

That's right, finding a Republican quote on this major story is as rare as finding a GOP politician acting as a grand marshal in a gay pride parade.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/29/1425728/-VW-the-EPA-Climate-Change-The-Bermuda-Triangle-of-Political-Traps-for-Republicans?detail=email

[Slomo]

VW, Porsche, Audi

1 in 6 Germans works in the auto industry

VW owns:
- Porsche - Audi
- Seat
- Skoda
- Lamborghini
- Bugatti

If memory serves they are the largest car manufacturer on the planet.

Yeah they'll take a hit but have the cash reserves to absorb it and they will clean up the mess in their typical efficient German manner.

[bigzak25]

Good to see you online Slomo! We'll always have London!

[Brazil]

If memory serves they are the largest car manufacturer on the planet.

Nah it is still Toyota but VW is number 2 and closing on Toyota. VW Plan was to take the lead by 2018 but forecast were showing them taking over in 16.

Toyota in 2014 produced 10,2 M cars 10,1 M for VW, I have not seen data for 2015 yet