Volkswagen's Dieselgate

Volkswagen's emissions conspiracy may have killed at least 4,000 people worldwide

Volkswagen's Emissions Conspiracy May Have Killed at Least 4,000 People Worldwide
—By Kevin Drum

How many people did VW's NOx defeat device kill? Over the weekend I did a rough estimate and figured that over the past six years VW's excess NOx emissions probably killed about a dozen people in Southern California. Since then I've slightly revised my spreadsheet to account for an error, which increases my estimate to about 17 people killed. My figuring was based on:

  • 50,000 cars sold in Southern California between 2009-2014
  • 3,800 excess tons of NOx over six years
  • 0.0044 deaths per ton of NOx
VW sold 500,000 altered cars in the US and 11 million cars worldwide, so this extrapolates to about 170 deaths in the United States and about 3,700 deaths worldwide.

The number of cars sold is a solid figure, and as near as I can tell the estimate of 0.0044 deaths per ton of NOx is reasonable (this paper estimates a range of .0019 to .0095). But others have come up with higher mortality estimates than mine based on a much higher estimate of excess NOx emissions. So here are my calculations:

  • The ICCT, which discovered the violation, says VW cars "exceeded the US-EPA Tier2-Bin5 (at full useful life) standard" by 10-35 times depending on model.
  • The Tier2-Bin5 standard is 0.07 grams per mile.
  • If VW cars averaged 30x the standard, that's 2.1 grams per mile.
  • Based on (a) increasing sales year over year and (b) the fact that older cars have driven more miles, I figure that the affected cars have been driven about 1.6 billion total miles over six years.
  • That comes to 3.5 billion grams of NOx, or about 3,800 tons.
Over six years, this extrapolates to 38,000 tons for the United States. But at an excess emission rate of 30x, the Guardian figures about 31,000 tons per year. That's five times my estimate.

My full spreadsheet is here. I invite comments.
 
Rambo said:
It is. But it's good conversation.
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You would need to know the exact data of every car, where (city or rural environment) and when it was driven, how much and at what speeds. Not to forget what diesel was used.
Diesel isn't a clean fuel to begin with. Even liquid gas contains a lot of waste from the oil refining, and that is legal. That's why the filter in liquid gas powered cars are often clogged.

Car manufacturers use all sorts of tricks to get to those totally unrealistic miles per gallon results. No wind resistance, insanely high tyre pressure, constant speed in laboratory conditions. Although that must be a recent thing, because my 24 years old car gets pretty close to what's said in the manual.

What about the old diesel trains running more or less everywhere in the US?
Have they been linked to early deaths? I'm sure regular commuters or residents close to the tracks must have suffered!
 
What an insane load of horse shit. Some people are clearly out of their fucking mind. Who the fuck cares for the liberal cunts in california anyways? Fuckers
 
Just Gunter and Klaus in engineering. You know what scamps those two are

VW scandal: staff suspended as car giant appoints new CEO

Volkswagen has blamed its emissions scandal on a “small group” of people and has suspended a number of staff as Matthias Müller was unveiled as its new chief executive.

Müller, who has been promoted from his role as boss of Porsche, pledged to leave “no stone unturned” and “maximum transparency” in an investigation into how the company cheated emissions tests on diesel cars. The new VW boss did not reveal how many staff had been suspended or who they were, but the company said the scandal was the result of “unlawful behaviour of engineers and technicians involved in engine development”.

Bernd Osterloh, chairman of VW’s work council and a member of the executive committee, said: “A small group has done damage to our company. We need a climate where mistakes are not hidden.”
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I read somewhere that the software involved has been developed in the US (California).

The fact, that Diesel cars of many manufacturers are not as clean as they claimed, has been known for at least a year: Trotz Euro-6-Abgasnorm - Die Mär vom sauberen Diesel

They have tested several brands, among them BMW and Mercedes, and they all emit way more in real driving conditions than allowed by the Euro-6 norm.

So if this was a well known fact for some time, why was VW specifically targeted in the US, and not also BMW and Mercedes (and most likely others)?
 
Scherensammler said:
I read somewhere that the software involved has been developed in the US (California).

The fact, that Diesel cars of many manufacturers are not as clean as they claimed, has been known for at least a year: Trotz Euro-6-Abgasnorm - Die Mär vom sauberen Diesel

They have tested several brands, among them BMW and Mercedes, and they all emit way more in real driving conditions than allowed by the Euro-6 norm.

So if this was a well known fact for some time, why was VW specifically targeted in the US, and not also BMW and Mercedes (and most likely others)?
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If VW with all their technical resources have had to cheat to make Euro 6, then it wouldn't surprise me if others have too.
 
Mercedes has "updated" the software of their Sprinter™ vans, so they will better communicate with the testing equipment.
They explicitly mentioned that this has nothing to do with any cheating software in the car.
 
How do people make a direct connection between polluting vehicles and death? Was no one alive when we had lead in our petrol?

I don't understand why people cry wolf about this. Every time you put out a rule or standard, people will try to beat it. Some beat it in unscrupulous ways and some, hopefully, do it in an honest straightforward fashion. Look at how standardised testing and leave no child behind did to education systems - people just get hooked on which hurdle they need to get over.

I'm dealing with this at work right now where total customer satisfaction is down but the metrics installed are pretty good because most of our activities are geared towards getting the hot potato and dumping it on some other unsuspecting soul. No one said anything about customer satisfaction - it was about getting hot potatoes, grenades and other shrapnel away from yourself so your metrics look better.
 
That car manufacturers are cheating is an old hat, so it's surprising that the US authorities "uncover" this right now.
Perhaps US car manufacturers are behind this, who knows. They haven't been competitive for years when it comes to economic models, instead they show big, heavy cars with big engines but with little prestige, compared to similar models made by BMW, Mercedes and Audi.

Either way, the VW scandal is a welcomed distraction from the migrant crisis. Which is why politicians (rather unnoticed) dare to say that the capacity to take in migrants is reaching it's limit.
But lets see how long VW stays in the news. I'm sure the next big "scandal" is not far away...
 
Scherensammler said:
That car manufacturers are cheating is an old hat, so it's surprising that the US authorities "uncover" this right now.
Perhaps US car manufacturers are behind this, who knows. They haven't been competitive for years when it comes to economic models, instead they show big, heavy cars with big engines but with little prestige, compared to similar models made by BMW, Mercedes and Audi.

Either way, the VW scandal is a welcomed distraction from the migrant crisis. Which is why politicians (rather unnoticed) dare to say that the capacity to take in migrants is reaching it's limit.
But lets see how long VW stays in the news. I'm sure the next big "scandal" is not far away...
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Bear in mind that the 2 biggest US manufacturers have European operations also. So it wouldn't make sense for them to blow the whistle.

It would not surprise me in the slightest that other manufacturers knew what VW was up to, and knew how they were doing it.
 
formby said:
Bear in mind that the 2 biggest US manufacturers have European operations also. So it wouldn't make sense for them to blow the whistle.
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I'm pretty sure that US CEO's care little for their EU operations. When the financial crisis hit them in 2008/ 2009 they didn't hesitate to make huge cuts in Europe, especially the UK and Germany (Vauxhall and OPEL, both GM).

Rambo said:
Something is rotten in the state of Germany | The Japan Times
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Very one sided. After WW 2 it were the US corporations to set the standards for bribing and influencing politics.
And when it comes to rigging the markets, Deutsche Bank is not worse than any other large Investment bank in the (Western) world.
 
ConchitaWurst said:
payback tyme
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today a dutch expat asshole discussed the issue in the lift at work
also mentioned that germany is one of the most corrupted economies in europe - because of all the family businesses which do not have compliance processes
 
LKP said:
today a dutch expat asshole discussed the issue in the lift at work
also mentioned that germany is one of the most corrupted economies in europe - because of all the family businesses which do not have compliance processes
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The family businesses are the back bone of the German economy. Because, other than the large corporations, they actually pay their taxes. And they don't fire thousands of employees to please shareholders.

As a positive outcome of this, we might actually get cleaner cars/ air.
 
LKP said:
today a dutch expat asshole discussed the issue in the lift at work
also mentioned that germany is one of the most corrupted economies in europe - because of all the family businesses which do not have compliance processes
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:nowkiss:
 
In the meantime GM/ Vauxhall/ Opel have to call back most of their Zaphira models because they can (and most likely will) burst up into flames.
I'd rather have a safe car with cheating software than one that can kill me more or less instantly.
 
Scherensammler said:
In the meantime GM/ Vauxhall/ Opel have to call back most of their Zaphira models because they can (and most likely will) burst up into flames.
I'd rather have a safe car with cheating software than one that can kill me more or less instantly.
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please stop your biased german posts. we know you drive a KONZERN car
 
ConchitaWurst said:
once these lefties are in power there is no lite anymore. before you know it you guys will all be communists
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Too late:

LEFTIES
1873-1878
1896-1911
1921-1930
1935-1957
1963-1984
1993-2006
2015 -

RIGHTIES
1867-1873
1878-1896
1911-1921
1957-1963
1984-1993
2006-2015
 
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