You would think that after Volkswagen’s implosion over diesel emissions, plus stories that have affected FCA and GM, among other companies, that the likes of Daimler would quickly make sure that they were walking a tight rope, dotting every “i” and crossing every “t” to the letter of the law, especially in Germany, where “Dieselgate” has really kicked the automotive manufacturers in the shorts the hardest. Nope. Apparently Germany’s authority for road vehicles, the KBA (Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt) has found up to five different “illegal switch-off devices”, according to an article in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
The KBA believes that the devices were installed into the majority of the diesel fleet to comply with Euro 6 vehicle emissions standards, which were enacted for 2014. Daimler’s vehicles use urea to clean up the exhaust fumes, something that the KBA isn’t completely sold on (they suspect that it’s a method of bypassing detection.) The discovery got Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche an immediate summoning to the office of the Transport Minister. Daimler’s official stance is that they dispute that the software pieces were illegal, will not comment on the number of vehicles affected, and is fully and transparently cooperating with both the KBA and the Transport Ministry.
All we can say at this point is, “who is next”?
Shocking…..
I wonder what the real story is behind these company’s making the decision to bend or break the law.. ? is it simply greed? or are they getting bad advice from some independent contractor/company?
Not sure how they all can come to such a dumb conclusion after VW got caught.. That being said, i also do not have a lot of faith that we are getting the whole story ether.
Crazy. That is going to be an expensive mistake.
I doubt greed or hate for the environment has anything to do with this. Consider how much R&D has been invested to get to this point. I believe the regulations are just unrealistic at this time.
I’ll bet it costs less to design cheat software, get caught, and pay the fine, then it does to R&D a engine package to meet the standards.
I will wager it is all about greed. The R and D they put into these engines tell them that to make them legal would be too costly. Read the book on Chryslers turbine car. That was before computers of course .But they knew emissions were coming soon. And to build it to make it clean would be too costly. That’s what killed the turbine car.Yep I say its all geed.Why else would they do it. The only reason they build cars in the first place is to make profit .Greed,greed, greedy sons a bitches .
Well, if they don’t make a profit, they go out of business…..
Or, they could just pass the huge cost of R&D, onto the consumer. But then no one would buy the product due to cost, so they would go out of business….
What killed the turbine car was cost, and the fact that it didn’t really get any better mileage than a piston engine.
Can we stop having the politicians designing the cars yet?