Author Topic: Volkswagen Scandal Highlights European Stalling on New Emissions Tests  (Read 398 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline truth_seeker

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 28,386
  • Gender: Male
  • Common Sense Results Oriented Conservative Veteran
Volkswagen Scandal Highlights European Stalling on New Emissions Tests

28 Sept.

BRUSSELS — European legislators got a jolt this month in their long-running effort to update auto-emissions standards when a German member of the European Parliament suddenly proposed exempting a whole class of vehicles.

“This was a huge loophole, and everyone was asking: Where does this idea come from?” recalled Bas Eickhout, a member of the Dutch Green party who sits on the committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.

It did not take long to discover the origin of the contentious proposal: Volkswagen Group. What had seemed a proposal by a legislator was in reality the work of the German carmaker.

Martin Winterkorn, who resigned last week, has said that he had no knowledge of the diesel software that was rigged to fool emissions tests.

Matthias Müller, the new chief executive of Volkswagen, has won plaudits for increasing sales and profits when he led the company's Porsche unit.

This was just one particularly brazen example of how European automobile manufacturers have for years sought to thwart or water down regulation of their industry. And it helped explain one of the biggest mysteries left by the announcement this month  that Volkswagen had installed software in 11 million diesel vehicles to ensure that they provided false information about emissions: Why had Europe, which has far more diesel cars than the United States, failed to uncover and halt this ruse?

snip
"God must love the common man, he made so many of them.�  Abe Lincoln

Offline truth_seeker

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 28,386
  • Gender: Male
  • Common Sense Results Oriented Conservative Veteran
Re: Volkswagen Scandal Highlights European Stalling on New Emissions Tests
« Reply #1 on: September 28, 2015, 11:07:15 pm »
The 500,000 vehicles sold in the US with this "defect" are miniscule compared to the 11 million sold elsewhere.

It happened this month for VW/Audi with one diesel engine, but could happen for other makers and other engines.

*** I'm pretty sure it is entirely the fault of Obama, Boehner, McConnell, Jebbush, GOPe, and last but not the RINOS of course.



"God must love the common man, he made so many of them.�  Abe Lincoln