Does anybody understand why VW gamed its emissions controls? What was it trying to gain?
Of course, the reason doesn’t change anything. The company richly deserves to pay its 18-billion fine, and then some. I’m just curious what could motivate them to do something this shitty. Do they profit somehow from sabotaging the emissions controls?
It allowed their cars to have higher fuel efficiency. That’s it, but if you think about it that is huge. It allowed them to let a car have say 42 mph (as some of theirs did) vs maybe a competitor with 35 mph.
The exact difference has not been calculated by any source that I know of, but to get diesel to burn clean, you lose some amount of fuel efficiency. They made it so that when being tested they burned clean to pass EPA tests, but when out on the road their software basically “shut off” the additional polution reduction effects, and let the gas mileage improve (and cause emission of Nox and other pollutants 10x-50x)
I think that is pretty accurate reader’s digest version. hope it helps at least explain why they tried, but that they were dumb enough to think they could get away with it forever is shocking.
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Ah, ok, got it. I’m still very ignorant about cars. Thank you for the explanation, Matt.
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They’ve been pushing the idea of ‘clean diesel’ cars for a while now, claiming that their cars could get higher mileage without any loss in performance (lower torque, etc.). This hits the sweet spot of people who are environmentally conscious, but still care about their car’s performance i.e. they don’t want to drive a sluggish car like the Prius. So, this represented the best of both worlds.
A story too good to be true.
Honestly, I didn’t expect this from a German company. An american company, yes, all day everyday.
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This is beyond disgusting.
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It really is.
If you owned this vehicle, what would you do? I have a friend who owns a Jetta. The thing is, this is a voluntary recall. She doesn’t want to get this issue fixed because it’ll compromise her car’s performance. So, she’ll drive every day knowing and not caring that her car pollutes 40 times the maximum limit.
I don’t like this, but I’m trying to be less judgmental these days. I’d like to think I wouldn’t do this, but it’s easy to make decisions when you’re faced with only hypothetical situations.
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Stringer Bell, when you hear my asthmatic lungs wheezing, and see me get the rescue inhaler out of my purse, you will know that for people like me, air pollution is anything but hypothetical. I don’t need to see the ozone report, I can feel it in my lungs on bad days.
I hope your friend enjoys her peppy little car.
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Barbara, it’s very important to remind everybody that there are actual people who suffer as a result of these shenanigans.
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Can it be fixed by a mechanic? I’d get a mechanic to fix the issue. Of course, in the spirit of non-judgmentalism, it’s easy for me not to care about fuel efficiency, given that I drive such short distances that a tank of gas lasts me 6 weeks.
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It’s all about reducing costs and raising prices.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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