Carmakers Chose To Cheat To Sell Cars Rather Than Comply With Emissions Law, 'Dieselgate' Trial Told (yahoo.com)
- Reference: 0179772488
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/10/13/1933213/carmakers-chose-to-cheat-to-sell-cars-rather-than-comply-with-emissions-law-dieselgate-trial-told
- Source link: https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/carmakers-chose-cheat-sell-cars-144851952.html
> More than a decade after the original "dieselgate" scandal broke, lawyers representing 1.6 million diesel car owners in the UK argue that manufacturers deliberately installed software to rig emissions tests. They allege the "prohibited defeat devices" could detect when the cars were under test conditions and ensure that harmful NOx emissions were kept within legal limits, duping regulators and drivers.
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> Should the claim be upheld, estimated damages could exceed $8 billion. The three-month hearing that opened at London's high court on Monday will focus on vehicles sold by five manufacturers -- Mercedes, Ford, Renault, Nissan and Peugeot/Citroen -- from 2009. In "real world" conditions, when driven on the road, lawyers argue, the cars produced much higher levels of emissions. The judgment on the five lead defendants will also bind other manufacturers including Jaguar Land Rover, Vauxhall/Opel, Volkswagen/Porsche, BMW, FCA/Suzuki, Volvo, Hyundai-Kia, Toyota and Mazda, whose cases are not being heard to reduce the case time and costs.
[1] https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/carmakers-chose-cheat-sell-cars-144851952.html
Car manufacturers are correct (Score:4, Informative)
The car manufacturers are correct, the so called 'laws' are garbage. Europe and the USA are going to lose all of their manufacturing, China will win in this manufacturing war and that's all there will be.
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Arbitrary laws will be arbitrarily violated.
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What does complying with environmental laws have to do with manufacturing? They intentionally rigged software in the cars to detect when an emissions test was happening.
Re:Car manufacturers are correct (Score:5, Insightful)
You're not wrong, but you are.
The laws ARE garbage. If a test can be rigged, it will be. This is the nature of how things are. China WILL win, if we continue to regulate ourselves out of competition.
The US has a similar problem, we have CAFE standards that were SUPPOSED to require car manufacturers to increase efficiencies to IMPOSSIBLE levels. The problem is, those rules only applied to "cars". Almost all US car manufacturers have stopped making cars, and the ones they are building are largely big muscle cars, and not fuel efficient ones. Instead, they are building SUVs that aren't "cars" but are classed as "trucks" and exempt, and a few Hybrids that really nobody actually wants.
The law of unintended consequences is undefeated
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Oh piss off.
Several of the manufacturers involved here either are, have been or will shortly be, involved in motor sports - where they will collectively spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year eeking out another 1% performance gain or efficiency gain out of an engine which is already vastly more performant or efficient than the engines we use as consumers.
These manufacturers can meet the regulations, they choose not to.
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The sports engines do not last very long. The rules for various sports specify how long the engine should last and they do not last longer than that.
I do not want an engine like that in my car. I want one that lasts very long even if it is bigger, less powerful and less efficient than the alternatives. Filling up the gas tank does not take a lot of time. Rebuilding an engine does. Even if the less reliable engine used enough less fuel to save up for the rebuild (and repairs of the additional components that
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The levels aren't really impossible. California mandated better emissions and the car makers complained. But here we are with heavier cars that get better economy.
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Actually they are impossible except under consistent, controlled circumstances (which is kind of the cause of the whole scandal anyway). Put your foot down and it's definitely pushing nox and particulate out the tail pipe. But even still it's pretty clean. There's just not a lot to be gained by going to tier 5 or beyond. But at the same time emissions controls are getting very costly and unreliable. Volkswagen recalled a bunch of the scandal engines to fix them and no one is happy with the power and econ
Re:Car manufacturers are correct (Score:4, Interesting)
China's not winning because of some kind of hands off approach. They are winning because their governments forced an early switchover to electric and then also built the massive renewable energy supply needed to do that cheaply. That's the kind of active pro-business but also pro-national interest policy that got the US into the leading position it was in after WWII.
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[1]The Telegraph [telegraph.co.uk] - this one talks about China and its complete automation of production lines, speed to manufacture and deliver the final product. The West is done, it cannot compete, I wrote this here decades ago, once the West loses its manufacturing due to inflation, money manipulation, regulations and taxation, it will lose its engineering and then its education and science. In any case, what the West lost a long time ago is its ability to manufacture anything quickly and cheaply, its ability to manufact
[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/10/12/why-western-executives-visit-china-coming-back-terrified/
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We need to shut down the word socialism until we can figure out what the hell is going on.
Republicans deserve zero respect and zero attention and zero credence because like is promptly demonstrated here they will never... ever take responsibility for anything. They spend my entire life cutting taxes, cutting regulations, preaching free trade, rubber stamping every merger and acquisition and now you want to complain and blame boogeyman socialists? Absolute clownshoes behavior.
There's plenty of blame to go a
Re:Car manufacturers are correct (Score:4, Insightful)
> China's not winning because of some kind of hands off approach. They are winning because their governments forced an early switchover to electric and then also built the massive renewable energy supply needed to do that cheaply. That's the kind of active pro-business but also pro-national interest policy that got the US into the leading position it was in after WWII.
We aren't allowed to have pro national interest anything in the US. That's grounds for getting called a fascist, and shot in the neck.
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I'd imagine that the one of the big reasons that the auto manufacturers cheated on their diesel emissions results is that they didn't want to require drivers to have to put DEF into their vehicles every few thousand miles like they do with diesel trucks. I can't blame them for that, it seems like a pain and probably would have hurt their sales.
Easier to list who's missing (Score:2)
If you look at the long term big manufacturers present in the UK... Where's Fiat? Honda? Can't see many more missing.
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Fiat is FCA here, but I get your point...
Stock fine. (Score:2, Troll)
The companies that did this should be fined the value of all cars they sold, in the form of stock of their companies.
If they sold 15 billion worth of cars this way, they owe $15 billion of stock to the governments. Note, I am talking the amount they sold the cars for, not the amount of profit. cars unsold must use the real results, not the fake emmissions. If that means they cannot be sold, they cannot be sold.
The governments should keep the stock for 20 years then sell it off slowly.
Fair's fair (Score:1)
If execs want to treat the law as optional, their customers should as well. If they don't see a need to comply with emissions law, I don't see why I should comply with the one that says they should be compensated for their goods.
Seriously. People who flout the law and then claim its protection piss me off.
Shocking (Score:2)
Who would have that they'd do something like that? I mean besides everyone.
Wasn't Dieselgate ... (Score:4, Insightful)
> More than a decade after the original "dieselgate" scandal broke, lawyers representing 1.6 million diesel car owners in the UK argue that
... settled already? With fines and penalties, mandated fixes or vehicle buybacks, etc? Isn't this sort of like beating a dead horse? Or beating the glue that the dead horses were rendered into?
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The Exxon Valdez lawsuit wasn't settled until 2008. The spill happened in 1988.
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Yes. But it was tried and settled once. Not repeatedly.
The judgment will also bind other manufacturers (Score:2)
"The judgment on the five lead defendants will also bind other manufacturers including Jaguar Land Rover, Vauxhall/Opel, Volkswagen/Porsche, BMW, FCA/Suzuki, Volvo, Hyundai-Kia, Toyota and Mazda, whose cases are not being heard to reduce the case time and costs."
Excuse me? Since when is that a legal procedure?
We're having a trial to find out if these guys are guilty. And then we'll consider these other guys guilty and penalize them too.
Aren't they entitled to a trial?
Your neighbour has been found guilty o
Not just emission tests (Score:3)
Have you ever wondered why have cars got so big? Why do we have more SUVs? It's because emission norms take into account the class (size) of the vehicle. All the powerful engines couldn't get away with getting into the right brackets so many manufectures instead decided to keep the same engine/power/emissions but make the car bigger so that it can squeeze under the right limit.
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Lawmakers need to learn the terms "unintended consequences" and "malicious compliance"
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> Have you ever wondered why have cars got so big? Why do we have more SUVs? It's because emission norms take into account the class (size) of the vehicle. All the powerful engines couldn't get away with getting into the right brackets so many manufectures instead decided to keep the same engine/power/emissions but make the car bigger so that it can squeeze under the right limit.
That's in the US due to EPA regulations or CAFE.
But the real reason is profits - because the big car trend started with the American
Decade? (Score:2)
Why does it take over a decade to bring this to court? This isn’t nuclear fusion research.
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> Why does it take over a decade to bring this to court?
The correct oxen must be gored, and the correct pockets must be filled with the correct amounts. It takes a long time for The Great and The Good to plan the feast.
If the lawsuit succeeds... (Score:2)
...how many of the car companies will be killed?
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None of the big ones. They have budgeted for this a long time ago. Everyone who has bought a car since the original scandal has been paying into a fund to cover any payments they have to make.
Might not be about laws or regulations. (Score:2)
This could be a government shake down for cash. It is all about the money. Ever notice when governments win these kinds of cases. There is rarely any jail time for anyone and the cash goes poof!
Car manufacturers cheated to save money .. (Score:2)
Car manufacturers decided they would rather cheat to prioritise "customer convenience" and sell cars than comply with the law on deadly pollutants.
Car manufacturers decided they would rather cheat to prioritize not spending money on fixing the diesel particulate filters (DPFs).
Manufacturers faked emissions by using software that detected when vehicles were undergoing emissions testing and adjusted engine performance to pass these tests despite the above defects, which emitted much higher pollutan
Always the "business" assholes (Score:1)
Unless we get these cretins under control, they will be the end of us.
You need law enforcement. (Score:1)
You need cops walking the White collar beat in order to get those cretins under control.
The trick is those cops are what we call bureaucrats. A bureaucrat is a white collar cop.
Think about every context where you've heard the phrase bureaucrat and your entire life. There is a reason why you have been taught regularly to demonize bureaucrats but not the kind of cops did punish crimes ordinary people like you and me are likely to do.
Imagine if you're running a mafia and you can convince the public
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Well, I call them "regulators" and "auditors". I have never thought of myself as a "cop" in any way though. Hmmm.
"Bureaucrats" are something else. Those are the people that fetishize formalized inefficiency.
Re: You need law enforcement. (Score:3)
Red tape holds the world together.
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> Frankly I'm surprised the United Kingdom has enough of a law enforcement arm left in place. If this was America the lawsuit would already have been dismissed by the Department of Justice.
The DOJ already had their shot. However, they only ended up [1]picking on one auto group [wikipedia.org] and failing to deal with the others at least at the beginning.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal
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Will you two get a room already?
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> If this was America the lawsuit would already have been dismissed by the Department of Justice.
In public class action lawsuits, the DOJ can only enter a statement of opinion, they can't dismiss it. They can challenge the settlement amount afterwards, but they won't necessarily win that either. However, they can cancel litigation that was started by their own division or subdivision. When you cancel litigation from your own doj civil rights division, you have to expect people are going to be very unhappy... but that isn't what you mentioned, so... maybe you can give a good example to prove your point?
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Sure. And if the government cretins would forego a lawyer or two and instead hire an actual technician tasked to actually verify the performance of regulated products once or twice a decade, you'd actually have some means of keeping the business cretins under control. But time and time again, whether it's Madoff or dieselgate or Boeing, we find no functioning technicians anywhere in the whole, bloated clown show: just a bunch of lawyers covering asses and gleefully dancing through revolving doors.
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