Zoltan, how do you know everything?
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The hippie in me makes me despise VW for this. I don't think I'll be buying a VW ever.
Yeah to the tune of $32m....well it sez a possibility.
It's funny just how much he looks like Lee Iacocca
As alluded to above above, I wonder how this will affect some European markets.
Over here tax is based on engine size and or emissions based on use case and status of the car (age, purpose).
So in good faith people would buy lowemmision cars to pay less road tax. If this is found to be happening here too the might well be grounds for a class action where VW will have to pay damages to the owners of the cars and co sideravle tax to the government to make up for lost revenue due to this cheating.
Interesting.
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But the European car market has been sad for a while, because most European manufacturers have been investing heavily in the US. Since the VW Golf IV, all you bought from VW when buying a Golf was lard, and the same goes for BMW or Mercedes. The Golf II GTI 16V was legendary, the Golf GTI now is a disgrace, a rolling entertainment lounge, not a hot hatch. A BMW 2002ti back in the 70's was nimble and lightweight, it started the entire fame of the BMW middle class cars. What do you get now when you buy a 3er or 4er (the mere number designation is wrong!): a US style macho car, waaaaay too heavy and full of useless gadgets you don't need when you're focused on negotiating turn after turn on the small European roads or when you're cruising at 230 KM/h on the Autobahn... those cars shouldn't weigh 1600-1800 kg, they should weigh 900-1100 kg, BMW should use engineering power for that, not for the next absurd phase of iPhone integration... European automotive customers have been frustrated for years about this... the only BMW worthy of the driving experience you would associate with the brand was the 1er, and now they're making that into a front wheel drive mini pampers bomber... it's a disgrace, and every bit of hardship they get in the US, they deserve for betraying their roots, VW, BMW, Porsche, Mercedes... all of them.
VW has had quality problems for years. It started after the year 2000. The Golf IV was a mess: electrical problems, shaking and rattling everywhere, etc... and it was still heaps better than what came afterwards. The last Audi that drove like an Audi, was the A3 Quattro with the V6 engine, except that it should have had a 4 cylinder turbo instead, but a good one. The last Porsche that drove like a Porsche was the 993, after that the whole Porsche feeling was gone and it became like a VR lounge, basically exactly the same driving experience as a VW Golf, but with more noise and more costs. Those 911's from the 70's, those were real Porsche cars worthy of the name... light, radical, making a whole lot from a pretty modest engine, providing the driver with a lot of fun, not with a posh brand entertainment system with touch screen and a microbe recycling air conditioner...
VW needs to bring simple back. Why do people buy Dacias? Because they're cheap? Then they wouldn't buy 20kEUR 4WD Dusters. They buy them because they're simple and provide a lot of driving experience, instead of a daft multimedia lounge experience. They buy them because they still look like cars. They're not that cheap. They're just not as useless...
There is a big difference between the European and US car markets. Europeans just want to drive, they want to drive in their small streets and park in the smallest parking space and just have fun driving. All they need is a pretty small engine in a light car that offers a lot of internal space for minimal external dimensions. The rest is company car nonsense.
The environment and safety doesn't really concern me when it comes to my car to be honest. I like my car because it tries to kill me all the time. I wouldn't like my car if it became any less radical than it is. The cost of good old European motoring however has become waaaaay too high, just because the European car manufacturers are not making European cars any more.
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Exactly, that is the thing that botters me aswell.
found a substitute for VW diesels cars
5.9L Cummins 12-valve swapped Dodge Charger..
Well i hope the other car manufacturers kept their noses clean,, looks like there will be some Probing.
this is going to be very interesting to see what happens
Same thing in France as well for the tax.
yeah, well its goingto be a though time for the car industry i think.
Logan mentioned in this week's The Tek how diesels are very popular in Europe because petrol is expensive. While that is true, diesel cars are more expensive to buy and the general consensus is that if you do up to 20k km per year, you're better off getting a petrol engined car.
One thing I do want to clear up is that petrol engined cars are absolutely NOT only driven by rich people. Plenty of normal people drive a petrol, the engines are just smaller here (base Jetta has a 1.2TSI for instance).
I personally drive a diesel car (and yes, it's a VW) but the reason I do is because it is a company car. Here in Belgium company cars are taxed on power and CO2 emissions, so diesels have an unfair advantage (it's slightly different for private persons). By comparison, in the Netherlands, a whopping 80% of people drive a petrol-powered car.
Yes its because in the Netherlands cars are getting taxed on fuell type and weight instead of emission which is a bit rediculous imo.
Taxing cars based on emission is basicly way more fair to me.
The only thing which is concerning about this whole thing, is that the country´s that also tax based on emission will most likely going to walk with the US investigators.
This will most likely mean, that other country´s might come with similar investigations against car company´s aswell.
The car industry is allready in heavy weather for a couple of years now especialy in Europe.
So this might be bad for the economie.
Well I would not worry too much over the fate of the car companies. Seeing that the US-Government bailed out GM and that the state the VW headquarters resides in holds 12% of the stock in VW I would not find it too unrealistic that Germany would take over VW if the fines proved to be ruinous. You have to remember: the car lobby is very connected in the German government.
It is not the companies any of us, or at least I, am worried about. It is the numerous cars all ready on the road that have been or are still being paid for. Those are now open for increased taxes and other nice things that we did not expect we had to pay for under the original spec of the cars.
For all I care, FUCK VW. Especially now.
exactly, what will happen to the people who boaght the cars on which they have done this?
- will they be forced to pay more road tax?
- depreciation of their vehicles?
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With major recalls in regards to stuff like this manufacturers go back about half a decade to sort out any currently new car or recently new car purchases, and will more than likely offer some incentive. What that incentive will be exactly has yet to be determined by the courts. Used car purchases that have passed on from more than one person from the dealership, for more than 'X' amount of months old will definitely be excluded. To include those would be ludicrous.
With matters like this there would typical leverage dictated by the courts to the people once VW offers an incentivised deal that leaves the consumer the choice to change vehicles. I assume the deal would be something along the lines of: 'Take 'X' amount for a new car trade in next year OR take the same amount for the next 'X' amount of years to pay toward your road tax based on where you live. For those without a road tax issue, they will probably be given just the one choice of a rebate on a new vehicle and if they refuse it it's their problem.
Depreciation can't really be calculated equally. There will be a typical incentive plan...only thing that makes sense.
Well not if this goes back more than a year or two. Cars are traded and sold all the time so to exclude them because of that while this is not a fault of the age or being sold on is even more ludicrous. VW fucked up and should be responsivle for ALL cars with the problem.
Also. Damn the news used to be actual news. I wish it was like that now.
If the used car purchase goes back more than 36 months and has been through numerous owners (owners could even be rental agencies within a dealership) I don't see them honoring any sort of incentive to certain customers. I just don't.
As much as I agree with you, no ruling body is going to seriously harm the largest (and wealthiest) automaker on the planet to the point of near bankruptcy.
You also have to consider if the owners brought the cars only to the dealership for warranty/routine maintenance and parts replacement, if the owner always used proper oil, if the owner always used proper wheels and tires. This will all come in to effect. If the owners didn't abide and everything is documented then clearly VW is going to exclude them from any incentive program. The reason I say this is because if the owner wasn't taking care and using the car to it's stock or recommended ability they could simply tell the customer 'Sorry, but you're ineligible'. Don't be surprised if that happens because I am willing to bet it will.
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for private persons, cars here in Belgium get taxed based on fuel type, CO2 emissions, Euro norm for engines and power (so-called fiscal horsepowers, which is based on cylinder output).
NOx emissions for diesels don't play a role in it at all though, nor do PM10 emissions, which I believe is unfair because both of those are a more direct harm to the health of most humans.
As I said on reddit, I wouldn't mind if NOx and PM10 started playing a role from now on, existing cars can be grandfathered in and a ban for all Euro 1 and Euro 2 engined diesels (or those not meeting any Euro norm at all) as they are the most polluting.
Totally agree with you this is a serious issue that the EU isn't regulating nox and pm10
I don't see why we shouldn't if its so much worse than CO2 for humans.
Here in France Diesel as a god like status and it would be time for it to go away.
Well, the shit has already hit the fan in Belgium: 3200 ordered VW diesels are being held up and not delivered out to customers by the importer.
The reason is quite obvious: VW was lying about the specs, in a way that cannot be discovered by the normal diligent customer. The state however cannot make an exception for false specifications when it comes to taxation, because the law has to be equal for everyone (except the royal family and the filthy rich and noble in Belgium of course lolz...). That means that what's going to happen, is that the state will tax the VW owners extra if it turns out that the CO2 specification is not right and the EURO-norm designation is not right... which then means that customers have a claim against the vendor of the product, which under European law is quite a complicated matter: the product liability directive de facto limits the damages to 1000 old German Marks when it comes to "class-action" type claims, but the general civil law liability is not limited by that, because the damage is other than just health damage, it's actual financial damage because of the extra taxation, and the European product liability directive is aimed at the unlimited liability for health damage. The usual civil law product liability however expires after two years, as VW doesn't provide extra warranties like Toyota or Hyundai for instance. It's a mess. Again, the laws are not made for modern hyper-capitalism, where citizens need not only protection against the TV store down the street, but need extra protection against the massive dishonesty of large multinational corporations...
In the German press, VW is making all kinds of marketing efforts to promote their electric cars... sometimes it looks as if the whole thing was just set up to kill fossil fuel cars. If it looks like a turd, and it smells like a turd, chances are it actually is a turd. When we then look at who own the patents for electric car technology, like batteries etc... oh, it's the oil companies... what a surprise! Guess they want us to buy overpriced electric cars then...
What I dislike the most is that the whole electric car marketing is even more dishonest than the VW diesel thing. Electric cars are useless, they are dishonest products, because they are made as a product with critical flaws so that people are bound to an entire overpriced services ecosystem. Back in the nineties, there were actual hydrogen fuel cell cars that worked. Mercedes had them, Toyota had them, etc... the problem is, that anyone can get hydrogen anywhere for dirt cheap, and that hydrogen cannot be patented by the oil industry. Therefore the whole concept of a real honest solution for transportation was wiped off the table, and they started creating this new system that was ideal for the powers that be: lets' sell the people overpriced dangerous pieces of crap, where they pay twice as much for a much simpler car then they would for a petrol car, and voluntarily sit on a few hundred kilos of unstable lithium cells waiting for an opportunity to go up in flames... let's make it so that they have to buy electricity and rent batteries for the thing, so that they can't travel very far, and have to spend money over and over again, and so that we can track them everywhere they go... electric cars are iphones, a bogus product that does nothing right for the customer and everything right for the vendors.
A real step forward would be to make hydrogen fuel cell electric cars, that can be refuelled at home with hydrogen made for a large solar array and plain rain water... oh, and electric cars cost much much less to make than fossil fuel cars, because they're basically oversized wheelchairs... so bring the next Golf to market, all-purpose electric family hatch with very good build quality, sold for under 12.500 EUR, containing hydrogen fuel cells that can be charged with home-made hydrogen or hydrogen bought from anywhere... that would be a real solution... but it's never going to happen, just like Microsoft will never go open source, car manufacturers don't want to be honest and open either...
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