Many outlets, including Jalopnik, the New York Times and Car and Driver are reporting that Volkswagen could be facing a recall of 482,000 vehicles and a potential fine that could hit $18 billion dollars. Yes, billion with a capital “B”. While the Takata air bag recall had huge numbers and big fines have been levied at General Motors and Toyota in the recent past, $18 billion dollars would be one of, if not the most staggering fine ever levied against an auto manufacturer.
Here’s the deal: Between 2009-2015, diesel VW Jettas, Beetle/New Beetles, Golfs, Passats, and Audi A3s were fitted with what’s known as a “defeat device”…in this case, it was a system that detected when the car was undergoing official emissions testing. If the test was detected, the full emissions systems kicked in and the test passed with flying colors. Otherwise, elements of the emissions system did not function and the four-cylinder diesels were allowed to run with elevated levels (up to 40 times the standard) of nitrogen oxide (NOx) spewing from the pipe. The unique part of this news is that Volkswagen themselves installed the defeat device from the factory, and admitted it to EPA investigators.
Currently, the EPA officially put Volkswagen “on notice” regarding the investigation and has not instituted a recall program or have fined the global manufacturer. However, under Federal law, the EPA could charge VW $37,800 per car that had the device installed. That brings up a total bill that is north of $18 billion dollars and probably has a lot of people in Wolfsburg feeling very sick to their stomachs right about now. We will be watching this one closely.
This is really a bummer. It’s a perfectly good car brought down by a corporate screw-up.
This is NOT the first car fitted with a defeat device – and caught. In the late 70’s an American automaker (to remain nameless) installed a device that activated a part of the emissions system that was triggered by the hood light switch. Dyno testing (at least at that time – I’ve been retired for over a decade) was run with the hood up to facilitate engine cooling. I don’t recall the fine but it, too, was significant.
The Agency can be fairly lenient in the case of an engineering screw up (essentially just requiring that the mistake be fixed) but they come down hard on deliberate cheating.
Dan
Unfortunately, this is a major blow to oilburners here in the US. Whether intentional or otherwise, the results of this cheat is another cloud of bad PR overshadowing genuinely solid technology. A shame.
Exxon will probably write the check for the fine just to keep diesels “in their place” and out of our hands.
So basically this device is transparent to the user/customer and only regulatory types and greenies would care. Still, how VW expected this to *never* be discovered is mystifying. They had to know this would result in a huge legal problem.
Going forward is there a fix for the defeat device that will still let cars pass emissions, or are VW diesels just banned from echeck counties? Will the government insist on cash to clunkering them? That could turn ugly.
Computers will have to be reflashed, and will then run with full emissions strategies at all times. Expect to see reduced power and a huge increase in EGR cooler failures, particulate filter problems and a many fold increase in DEF consumption. It is not good news for TDI owners.
The big question will be… How many current diesel owners will WILLINGLY bring their car into the dealer for a recall that will LOWER their diesel fuel economy.
Fines do nothing to global giants like VW and GM. They just pass them to their consumers in the price of their products. To make the management think twice, actually start putting some of them in jail for this and the deaths that occurred due to the faulty GM key switch that they knew about and let people die anyway.
“Too big to fail; too rich for jail.”
Neil Young
This makes me how poor the performance and/or drivability these engines had in legal emissions tune.
Yeah, if it was enough to risk gaming the EPA (and getting away with it) for 6 years, it had to have a significant effect on performance.
Do European models have it too? Maybe they dont need it due to different specs. The feds ruined diesels here anyway.
No, anthony, European standards are looser than US standards, so they don’t need to cheat.
Actually it was some European testing outfits that raised enough questions that CARB did some testing and found the defeat device here, too.
Another thing, too, it’s not a device but software hidden deep within’ the ECM
Das sneaky Auto.
In Nashville, TN this would have been found out. All they do is sniff the exhaust at idle. The system could not tell this is going on and would not activate.
Sniffer tests do not even come close to failing on any of the current diesels, even diesels we might modify pass a sniffer test. The EPA is creating a set of rules that almost makes it impossible to come to market with a viable diesel engine. This is the reason CAT stopped making on-road engines. In order to meet the restrictions it is creating less fuel efficiency and shorter engine life and more frequently needed oil changes. Kinda defeats the purpose of lower emissions if it has to use almost twice the fuel to achieve it….
To me this explains a lot in regards to Mazda’s inability to bring their diesel to the US. With that in mind, is the passenger car diesel market pretty much done for unless the EPA pulls it’s head out of it’s green hole?
The rules are in place to help clean up the air , and no I am not a tree hugger . I am a Total gear head hot rods motorcycles and sports cars. But having been born in the 50s I have seen some horrible air conditions growing up. Even with triple the humans around the Bay Area the air is better now than in the 70’s. Most people I have met don’t know how to change there own oil. They don’t need gross polluters or even performance they just want to be cool. The epa is not the problem the other countries including China need to catch up . We all breath the same air. As an example take any car from the 70s and compare it to the same car now, I will bet the current car is faster , handles better and is much safer even with the EPA enforced rules. Stop using the EPA as a place to place blame , this is a clearly an intentional move on VW to circumvent the rules and they should suffer heavy fines. I would go as far as saying the highest official who signed off on this should be placed in jail. It would send a clear message that everyone must play by the rules.
I think all Manufacturers are trying to get past the EPA in one way or another, I was just reading somewhere that Ford and a few others use 93 Octane with no Ethanol when doing testing for Horsepower and MPG Ratings.
You’d get better horsepower on the 10% ethanol blend, but the ethanol free stuff would give you more MPG.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-19/volkswagen-emissions-cheating-found-by-curious-clean-air-group
Farfegnugen…. Now will be Farfrumpassen
I find it ironic that the last name of the guy in charge of the initial testing on the US side is “German”. Can’t say I like his superior attitude: “especially since the agencies in those places don’t have the expertise … that they have here in the U.S.”
So just how would you jail the highest VW executives for this? They likely were not even aware this was built into the design. And how is the US going to jail them anyway, given they are based in Germany?
yea, motorcycles have had a similar program for years.
The Polaris Indians, BMW, probably most all of them detect when the test is being done and behave accordingly.
Not so new news in our industry.