The VW “Scandal”

[timosman]

An internal combustion car will soon be a rich hobbyist's pursuit only.

This is the future for the rest of us Mundanes:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/theoatmeal-i...eady_small.jpg

A safe and sane max speed of 25 mph, max range of 50 miles, electric, self driving and self reporting people pods, all under the watchful eye of 24/7 surveillance.

The future is already here - http://www.boston.com/cars/news-and-...glL/story.html

Pope Francis’s use of a Fiat 500L on his recent visit to the United States could have been the ultimate example of product placement.

Except that it wasn’t a Fiat PR arrangement; instead, it was the real thing.

[Anti Federalist]

Bastards!

50 mpg and and 0-60 in 8 seconds!

How dare they?!!

[osan]

Cars will not be outlawed for several reasons:

He did not say that cars would be outlawed. What he said:

An internal combustion car will soon be a rich hobbyist's pursuit only.

Phag-wagons and gaymobiles don't count.

Ooops... looks like I anti-PC'd. Quickly, someone report me so I can pay my debt to society by lethal injection.

1. Too deeply imbeded in the culture and infrastructure of the nation;

That is irrelevant in Theire eyes. If Theye wanted us out of cars, they could have us out in short order. Recall and never again allow yourself to forget that Theye do not care the least whit about what we want, how we feel, and so forth, save to the degree that we might come to our senses and cause Themme real loss. Theye know that is vanishingly likely, and therefore we get that to which we daily bear witness. That is not to suggest that Theye could not push us too far, but only that it is unlikely it would ever happen.

3. The auto industry is very profitable for the Banks.

New profit centers, like cheap whores, are a dime a dozen. One can barely take a step and not trip over one... when you're a bank, that is.

[presence]

I feel so violated.

[Lucille]

Volkswagen Of America CEO Grilled In Congress Over Emissions Scandal - Live Webcast
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-1...l-live-webcast

What may be the worst month in Volkswagen's corporate history is about to get a cherry on top, when the CEO of Volkswagen of America CEO Michael Horn is set undergo the Kangaroo Court treatment, when he testifies before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee investigating last month's admission the company had installed on-board computer software designed to cheat on government emissions tests in nearly 500,000 of its four-cylinder "clean diesel" cars starting with the 2009 model year.

According to ABC, an advance copy of Horn's prepared remarks provided to the committee Wednesday revealed VW's plans to withdraw applications seeking U.S. emissions certifications for its 2016 model Jettas, Golfs, Passats and Beetles with diesel engines. That raised questions about whether a so-called "defeat device" similar to that in earlier models is also in the new cars.

By withdrawing the applications for the 2016 models, VW is leaving thousands of diesel vehicles stranded at ports nationwide, giving dealers no new diesel-powered vehicles to sell. It wasn't immediately clear when VW would refile its application, but Horn's testimony said the company is working with regulators to get certification.

In other words, the massive "channel stuffing" car parking lots previously observed in the vicinity of major US ports are about to get even bigger.

More on today's hearing:

Thursday's appearance will be the first on Capitol Hill by Horn, a 51-year-old German and veteran VW manager who took the reins of the brand's American subsidiary last year. He is expected to face blistering questions about when top executives at the company first learned of the scheme.

Horn will tell Congress he only learned about the cheating software "over the past several weeks," VW spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan told The Associated Press Wednesday. He will also echo prior statements by the company's global chief executive apologizing for the cheating.

[donnay]

Germany's FBI raid Volkswagen's HQ and seize computers and data files relating to who ordered emissions cheating software to be installed

By Allan Hall In Berlin for MailOnline
Published: 10:00 EST, 8 October 2015

The VW car giant's HQ in Germany was raided on Thursday in a move that drastically raises the stakes in the ongoing emissions scandal.

Officials swarming into the vast Wolfsburg plant is being interpreted as a sign that the company has been less than cooperative with authorities over the fraud which may end up breaking it.

As well as Wolfsburg German media reported that other VW sites were raided in the afternoon. The searches were confirmed by the public prosecutor's office in Braunschweig.

The raids were carried out by prosecutors supported by police and officials of the LKA - Germany's equivalent of America's FBI.

Files and computer data were seized, understood to be in connection with just who ordered the fitting of emissions-cheating software to millions of vehicles sold around the world.

Whether and to what extent this software actually attacks in an unauthorized manner, is currently still subject to internal and external audits', VW announced on Thursday before the news of the raids.

Daily newspaper Bild pointed out that the sprawling Wolfsburg plant has been designated by the VW board as the place where most repairs to affected vehicles in Germany will be repaired.

The affair has already cost VW CEO Martin Winterkorn his job and there is clamouring in America for other top executives to be handed over.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...installed.html

[Anti Federalist]

No More Affordable Diesels

by eric • October 8, 2015

http://ericpetersautos.com/2015/10/0...dable-diesels/

VW was the only major automaker selling affordable diesel powered passenger vehicles in the United States. You could, for instance, buy a diesel-powered Jetta sedan, Golf or Beetle for about $22k.

Not anymore.

At least, not for awhile.

VW announced yesterday that it will withdraw emissions certification applications tendered to the EPA for all 2016 model year diesel-powered VW passenger car models.

This means they will not be legal for sale in the U.S.

Which means they will not be sold.

Which means, if you want an affordable diesel-powered car, you had better hurry to your local (or not-so-local) VW dealer and buy a 2015 Jetta, Golf or Beetle TDI before the remaining inventory runs out.

After that, you’ll be out of luck.

With the diesel VWs out of the game, there is only one diesel-powered car remaining that costs less than $30,000. That would be the diesel-powered version of Chevy’s Cruze sedan, a kinda-sorta rival of the Jetta TDI’s. Kinda-sorta, because it’s about the same size. But it’s much more expensive. Base price: $25,660 vs. $21,640 for the VW.

A difference – a price jump – of about $4,000.

Now, the Chevy’s a nice car. But its price tag – the price difference – does a number on the economic argument for the diesel engine under its hood. You will have to drive many miles before the savings at the pump make up for what you paid up front. And that, as they say, is the rub.

VW’s “sin” was to sell affordable diesels.

When people ponder purchasing a diesel-powered car, they weigh the diesel’s mileage vs. that of an otherwise similar gas-engined car and base their decision about which to buy on whether the diesel’s higher price “up front” would be amortized over time by the diesel engine’s superior fuel efficiency. If it is, then the diesel makes economic sense.

If it’s not, then not.

The Cruze doesn’t make economic sense – even though it gets very good mileage (27 city/46 highway). Buy it because it’s well-equipped (it is; Chevy only sells the Cruze diesel in one “loaded” trim) or because you enjoy the right-now torque output of the turbo-diesel engine.

But if you’re buying it to save money, you’re math skills are lacking.

And it is the only remaining diesel-powered car on the market that’s priced under $30,000.

Next up after the Cruze is the Audi A3 diesel. It’s an Audi, so an entry-luxury model. Base price, $32,600. It makes even less economic sense than the Cruze diesel. After that, you’re definitely swimming in the deep end of the pool with models like the diesel-powered version of the BMW 3 Series sedan (the $39,000 to start 328d) and the Mercedes-Benz E250 BlueTec ($54,300).

Some inside baseball:

Mazda had planned to bring an affordable diesel to market. The 2014 Mazda3 sedan (and the 2015 CX5) were supposed to have been available with Mazda’s new “Sky-D” diesel engine. And they are.

Just not here.

Mazda was unable to figure out a way to make them compliant with federal rigmarole and both efficient enough and priced low enough to make them plausibly competitive in the U.S. market. To meet the federal requirements, efficiency would suffer – and the cost would go up. While people might pay $32k for an Audi diesel (or $54k for a Benz diesel) a $26k (or more) Mazda diesel is a much harder sell.

Ditto the Honda i-DTEC diesel. Available in the UK and Western European countries. But not here.

Ask Chevy how many diesel-powered Cruzes they sell.

The answer, Alex, is not many.

Because they cost too much. And because it’s a Chevy.

Meanwhile, in Europe, there are diesel-powered versions of practically every passenger car, from the humblest economy car all the way up to the highest-end cars (and SUVs, too).

In Europe, diesels are not for-the-rich-only.

Here, they are.

Because of an out-of-control EPA and federal regulatory apparat that has imposed unreasonable – economically impossible to deal with – emissions rigmarole on diesel engines. If you have any doubt about this, ask yourself whether it’s an emissions-free-for-all in Western European countries like Germany and France. Do you believe their governments allow soot-spewing stinkpots on the road?

The problem is not that the diesels are “dirty.” It is that the EPA is out-of-control. This anti-democratic bureaucracy, subject to no vote, accountable to no American citizen, simply decrees standards that must be complied with irrespective of cost – or benefit.

And that is the nut of the problem here.

The people never had a say in this. No one ever empowered EPA to decide that a less-than-1-percent reduction in the overall output of oxides of nitrogen is worth whatever it costs to achieve compliance. EPA does not have to consider the economic impact of its fatwas. It simply issues fatwas – and leaves it up to the targeted industry to comply.

Regardless of cost.

The American people get no say. They simply get to pay. The best they can do is “call their representative” – which is like calling a “customer service” line in Mumbai to complain about a defective toaster.

Even Congress can do very little to rein in the EPA.

Because Congress has abdicated its legal obligation under the Constitution to pass laws. It has given to the EPA (and other federal “agencies”) de facto authority to legislate. What else is it, after all, when the EPA can issue a regulatory fatwa that has the force of law, that must be complied with?

This mess could be dealt with, if Congress would grow a pair. It need not even abolish the EPA (which would be like trying to abolish Kudzu in the South).

However, it could actually pass a law to the effect that any diesel-powered passenger car that meets European emissions standards is automatically legal for sale in all 50 U.S. states.

Remember: European diesel emissions standards are not lax. They are in fact very strict. But they are different than EPA’s loony standards. And it is the cost of complying with both the European and the U.S. standards that is keeping clean, high-efficiency diesels (some of which deliver 60 MPG or more) out of the U.S. market.

There is no legitimate reason for that.

EPA is run by maniacs, that’s all.

It’s time to chain them to a wall in a nicely padded room.

[phill4paul]

Politics. Pure and simple. Someone didn't pay someone.

Just remember, every tax dollar you give pays an EPA officials wages.

[Anti Federalist]

Kicking Ourselves in the Nuts

http://ericpetersautos.com/2015/10/3...s-in-the-nuts/

by eric • October 30, 2015

VW just announced it has lost nearly four billion dollars ($3.84 billion, to be precise about it) so far as a result of the “cheating” debacle. This does not include the punitive government fines or the likely class-action civil litigation that’s coming as surely as the winter.

This is a measure of the cost of government to you. Or do you operate under the delusion that something called “VW” will foot the bill?

Volkswagen is a corporation and so a “body” of sorts (a corpus) but it is not a living thing that needs a job.

VW provides jobs.

Well, did.

How many actual bodies – people – will lose their jobs as a result of all this? If VW goes keel up, turrets plummeting toward the bed (the rest of the hulk following suit once the bulkheads burst) you can bet it will be many. Not just at the corporate level. There is manufacturing and retail, the dealers that sell the cars. The suppliers. Etc.

It is very serious.

The total costs – the bleeding – could end up as high as 78 billion euros. In American, that is a really big number.

Nazi war criminals were not hounded this viciously.

And VW hasn’t actually harmed anyone.

There are, of course, the usual hysterical and utterly exaggerated claims about the “health effects” of microcosmic, fractional (literally) increases in the output of certain exhaust byproducts. These are similar to the nonsense about the “dangers” of second-hand smoke.

One doctored EPA “study” (lambasted by a federal judge, who openly accused EPA of cherry picking data and then distorting it like a fun house mirror to suit its preconceived agenda) was sufficient to fuel a jihad that continues to this day.

The same is likely to happen to VW – to diesel vehicles generally.

They will be portrayed as “dirty,” notwithstanding that they aren’t. People with asthma and so on will be found who can cough on cue in the courtroom, their maladies laid at the feet of diesel-powered VWs.

The prospect of this will drive other diesels headlong for the hills. Mazda is just one that appears to have decided it may not be such a good idea to offer the diesel engine it had planned to offer in several models (CX-5 and Mazda3). And even those brands that already sell diesels – and which have not been accused of anything (yet) may also decide it’s smart policy to get out of the game.

Some of you may remember the last time this happened.

It was the late ’70s. GM brought out a diesel engine that – as it turned out – was not quite ready for prime time. Unlike the situation today, that diesel did have problems. It soured a generation of American buyers. It took decades for diesel engines to make a comeback.

How long will it take this time?

VW – which had been the number one car brand in terms of total sales volume – is now not. One reason why is slumping sales but another – potentially far more lethal – is depreciation. How much – and how quickly – a given car loses value.

VWs – not just diesel-powered models – are losing value, fast. The industry publication F&I (finance and interest) notes that since Sept. 18, the Jetta and Passat TDI (diesel) sedans have depreciated by 7.9 percent (see here for more) while the TDI-powered Beetle slipped 6.5 percent. This is metastatic cancer for a car company. Those who currently own an “affected” car just got dunned hundreds, even thousands of dollars. The car that was worth say $25,000 on September 1 (before the “cheating” scandal broke) is now worth about $2,000 less, solely because of depreciation driven by a media feeding frenzy.burning cash

This sort of thing matters to people who are thinking about buying a given car.

It also matters to those considering a lease.

Rates depend on residual value, which is a function of depreciation. A car with an expected high depreciation rate will cost more to lease because it’ll be worth less at the end of the lease.

What most people don’t seem to get is that the burning $#@! bag left on VW’s door step is going to get $#@! on all our shoes. Whether you happen to own a VW or not.

There will be fewer diesel-powered cars generally as other manufacturers simply opt out. The handful that remain will cost more – and go less far on a gallon of fuel (in order to comply with the pound-foolish emissions rigmarole, which would rather the car pollute fractionally less at the tailpipe even if it produces a greater total volume of exhaust byproduct by dint of burning more fuel overall). They will thus be less appealing to buyers – who will buy fewer of them. Resulting in a market incentive to offer fewer of them for sale. Cue circling the drain.

We kick ourselves in the balls, you see.

VW may end up going out business. Or just being crippled. But when all is said and done, it’s us who’ll pay the bill, one way or another.

[Anti Federalist]

That red, ass kicking machine, is government.

[ChristianAnarchist]

If only I were in the market for an economy car... I'd be looking ONLY at used VW diesels...

[Anti Federalist]

If only I were in the market for an economy car... I'd be looking ONLY at used VW diesels...

Now's the time to buy, if you're in the market.

Get 'em before they are gone, or get ten tons of nonsense and horse piss sprayers hung on them.

[squarepusher]

Now's the time to buy, if you're in the market.

Get 'em before they are gone, or get ten tons of nonsense and horse piss sprayers hung on them.

I wouldn't buy one, since they are going to force new software on it that will make it run like $#@!t!

[Anti Federalist]

I wouldn't buy one, since they are going to force new software on it that will make it run like $#@!t!

It's not available yet, that's why I said NOW.

[Anti Federalist]

EPA is run by maniacs, that’s all.

It’s time to chain them to a wall in a nicely padded room.

Where I will give Trump an A.

[osan]

Originally Posted by osanWho was stupid, and before what, exactly?



Humans were more stupid, before now. Go back to 20,000 BC and try to have an intelligent conversation.

You appear to be conflating ignorance with stupidity. As for 20K BC, for one thing we don't know what people were like then as far as I can tell. For another, one cannot judge the people then by today's standards. Mr. Apples, meet Mr. Oranges.

The value of the IR is questionable, at the minimum. It is eminently arguable as well, so far as I can see.

I see it as immensely good and wonderful. An astounding achievement of the human mind and will. Finally we were able to escape the Malthusian trap.

The alternative is the elimination and starvation of the vast, vast bulk of humanity, and then the bare subsistence poverty of the few remaining, in perpetuity, forever. No, it is not at all arguable, in my opinion. I will leave the arguing against the Industrial Revolution to the insane.

Yes you can see it that way. It is equally valid to see it from the perspective of costs, which have been very high. Possibly too high, from certain standpoints.

As for your apparent assessment of the results of the so-called "Malthusian Trap", others may see it differently. Certainly you are entitled to your opinion on the matter, but so are others. I can swing either way on the issue, depending on the broader context in which it is being considered. Ideally, I would like to see everyone happy, healthy, manifesting good intelligence, smarts, and attitudes befitting Freemen. Meanwhile, on planet earth, we witness ignorance and the will to stupidity on a global scale such that it becomes something of a wonder as to how the world of men does not fly apart from one second to the next.

Do words to the effect of "I would like to see..." appear anywhere in that post?

Yes. You wrote I say knock [humanity] back to the hunter-gatherer stage and start over." That would seem to be a recommendation. I am glad to see you now say: "Do I want to return to hunter-gather mode? Not 100% sure, but probably not." That seems a far more reasonable, less insane, position.

Point taken.

Yes yes... sure. Now, how are we to do it in a world that is rapidly falling into a new Dark Age where the high priest forbids any path leading to sensible empowerment of the individual?

I offered two suggestions: entrepreneurship and humor.

Forming libertarian communities would be one more. Would you be interested in moving to a small township or county if 2,000 other liberty-lovers were also moving there, osan?

Neither will succeed in the current context.

So long as the greater mass of people retain the inferior attitudes of Weakmen, entrepreneurship will not likely set us to rights. Might may not make right, but it makes positive reality most of the time. As long as the Meaner embraces the conditions that leave him stuck with the status of Weakman and Merecog, there is vanishingly small chance that the world will edge any closer to freedom. The Tyrant doesn't even have to bring out his gunmen in this case because the Weakmen do his work for him in that they comply of their free will. The rest, those of the insufficient minority who would be at least closer to freedom, are controlled with overt threats and the occasional snuffing. They mostly want it, only not enough to risk death and dismemberment to have it. The subset that do is so small as to be worthy of little mention, even if Theye keep their eyes on them just to be safe.

Humor... a nice thing, but not much of a weapon against Themme in a world that wants what Theye dish out.

Forming libertarian communities... how do you figure to pull that off in a world where Theye forbid the crossing of certain boundaries.

Imagine Libertaria is established with 1 million people. That's pretty large. Now imagine there is a murder. Do you believe for even a New York minute that the community would be left to its devices to investigate and, ideally, adjudicate and administer the resultant justice? Not on your $#@!ing life. It would NEVER HAPPEN. Why? Because even Theye cannot afford the consequences of the message such a thing would send to the entire world, which broadcasts that we really don't need Themme and that we can actually get away with muscling them out. That would be the end for a subpopulation hell bent on controlling the rest - on RULING. That $#@! would be squashed in an instant in one way or another, one of those being through cooption. A fart by any other name...

Your ideas hold merit only in a world that wants the result they promise and the will to stand tall in the face of men who would have you cut down in an instant in order to preserve their position.

We need to be painfully real when discussing such matters. Theye become more entrenched with every minute.