How I see the TDI debacle

"FSI - alcohol enthusiast with a car problem" (fuelstratifiedinjection)
11/12/2015 at 12:56 • Filed to: I AM STUPID

I just found this on Speedhunters and wanted to share this. Basically my opinion on the matter. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

EDIT: The source is kinda stupid and the comments made me think about the situation as a whole.

DISCUSSION (20)

MultiplaOrgasms > FSI - alcohol enthusiast with a car problem
11/12/2015 at 13:14

The comments. -takes out neuralizer-

Aero > FSI - alcohol enthusiast with a car problem
11/12/2015 at 13:15

It’s much more complicated than GMs ignition switch problem, but there will be early deaths and health issues for some people due to these cars.

http://www.wired.com/2015/10/new-st…

FSI - alcohol enthusiast with a car problem > MultiplaOrgasms
11/12/2015 at 13:18

Almost as bad as Jalopnik.

FSI - alcohol enthusiast with a car problem > Aero
11/12/2015 at 13:19

I don’t buy it. Sensationalist media bs

needMORv8 now with more V8 > FSI - alcohol enthusiast with a car problem
11/12/2015 at 13:21

I think the response people are having to it is a bit silly and overdone, but I think the EPA slapping them with huge penalties is fair. VW when out of their way to essentially say FU to the emissions standards and EPA testing in order to purposefully deceive the regulators to sell cars that didn’t comply. I think it was just an extra slap in the face that VW then bragged about not needing the same systems as others and still complying.

jariten1781 > FSI - alcohol enthusiast with a car problem
11/12/2015 at 13:26

Please review the fallacy of relative privation and check back in with your philosophy prof.

Seriously though, they’re separate and distinct issues with the regulatory burden and consequences known ahead of time. There’s a discussion that can be had about how to level that going forward, if needed, but excusing bad behavior because worse things have happened is always a poor argument.

FSI - alcohol enthusiast with a car problem > jariten1781
11/12/2015 at 13:32

I really don’t want to excuse VAG for their actions. Really stupid actions. The EPA is gonna put a huge fine on them anyways. But what I hate about the scandal is the dumb double standards. The USA is still one of the biggest polluters on Earth. I’m not even a VW fan btw.

FSI - alcohol enthusiast with a car problem > needMORv8 now with more V8
11/12/2015 at 13:37

With stricter emissions every year the industry can only react so fast/slow. They should’ve just used Ad Blue like the others did.

BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast. > FSI - alcohol enthusiast with a car problem
11/12/2015 at 13:50

What did people think would happen when government regulators, who are not engineers, and may not even be mainstream car buyers (have you seen federal salaries, contrasted to the average private sector wages? federal bureaucrats aren’t living paycheck to paycheck....)

They continually jack up regulations to justify their bureaucratic jobs, regardless of feasibility or expense.

The car manufacturers have to sell cars at a price that the customers can afford, with the technology available to them. Diesel gets great gas mileage... which is a CAFE benefit, because the government will fine them if their fleet economy average is too low. Plus they have torque, unlike a gutless economy gas engine, which customers like, and is safer in traffic than not being able to get out of your own way...

So, the emissions standards, also dictated by a bureaucracy, not people who actually BUILD cars on a budget, say that the standards have to be so high.

So VW is locked in a triangle between what their customers are willing and capable of spending, and what they expect for their hard-earned money, and two sides of government regulations that regulate independently of each other, and both without regard to what is technically feasible, or reasonably affordable.

If they can’t meet the regulations and still sell cars, they can either not sell cars, and go out of business.... Sell only expensive cars to well-off people, and no longer be the “people’s car” which ‘volks wagen’ actually means, or they can flip the bird to the regulators, cheat their software, and sell some cars that are still likely cleaner than those sold more than 10 years ago or more... just not as clean as the bureaucrats have decided to mandate.

It is only the radical rabble-rousers who are clamoring about the difference between regulated, and actual emissions, while they don’t complain whatsoever about electric cars depending on coal fired power plants, or mining for the materials to make batteries for electric cars, and nobody talks about actually using abundant natural gas, rather than refined gasoline from crude oil.

It is political correctness running amok, and vilifying industry for not accomplishing a task that they dictated, and is currently not feasible anyway.

VW learned from motorsports... in the face of onerous rules, you cheat until you get caught.

VW should be building diesels and gas engines as clean as they can feasibly make them, without handicapping their cars to meet arbitrarily unfounded numbers, or pushing their price points higher than their customers can afford.

I don’t condone cheating... but in the face of government over-regulation, which is just a group of people, most notably ungoverned, what reasonable recourses are there?

SnapUndersteer, Italian Spiderman > FSI - alcohol enthusiast with a car problem
11/12/2015 at 13:51

Pleasen ever become a part of a regulatory agent. You’d be terrible at it by missing the point entirely

FSI - alcohol enthusiast with a car problem > BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast.
11/12/2015 at 13:59

I couldn’ve said it better myself. If I could I would star this 100000x. VW was stupid but they had to do at least something. They did, in the wrong way.

jariten1781 > FSI - alcohol enthusiast with a car problem
11/12/2015 at 14:13

The article reads:
“Yeah yeah yeah, VW is bad...but others are WORSE...lay off VW...and I said VW is bad so you can’t argue with me”

If the punishment was being drawn up retroactively that’s a fair argument...but it’s not. Everyone knew, or should have known, the rules of the game.

As to US pollution levels...so? I mean, assuming truth and pulling that string, it makes VW look worse...they’re consciously cheating and providing poorer emissions than you’ve posited are already too high.

A double standard would be: VW needed to meet higher emission standards than Ford (or whatever company) because reasons therefore they cheated to level the field.

Not: VW emissions aren’t a big deal because there’s lots of emissions. Nor VW cheating is bad, but there are worse things so people shouldn’t care so much.

Those are both forms of a moral equivalence fallacy.

FWIW: I don’t really care about the emissions flap nor do I think it’s a big scourge...I think we’re at a diminishing returns point on standards and current ones are created from inertia rather than a quantifiable need. I do find the flip out hilarious and it’ll be interesting to watch the megacorporation, consumers, and the governments go at it. Just poking at the poor argument style since that's a pet peeve of mine.

FSI - alcohol enthusiast with a car problem > jariten1781
11/12/2015 at 14:24

Okay, Speedhunters is by far not the best source (except you’re 12). And you are actually right.

GTI Sprinks > FSI - alcohol enthusiast with a car problem
11/12/2015 at 15:16

Agreed. 59 people on a planet of nearly 7.4 billion people means that that is statistical noise at best. .0000008% is what that works out to. Drop in the bucket.

FSI - alcohol enthusiast with a car problem > GTI Sprinks
11/12/2015 at 15:19

Yeah right you can totally link deaths directly to VW. I think I’m going to sue them right away for my future unborn children.

wiffleballtony > FSI - alcohol enthusiast with a car problem
11/12/2015 at 17:13

The article immediately lost credibility with the GM comparison. Followed up quickly by a drop in the pond analogy.

wiffleballtony > FSI - alcohol enthusiast with a car problem
11/12/2015 at 17:14

The USA has one of the biggest industries on earth and some of the highest environmental standards.

wiffleballtony > BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast.
11/12/2015 at 17:16

Yet somehow it seems like every single other company managed to not break the rules.

BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast. > wiffleballtony
11/12/2015 at 23:07

How many other Top-5 Auto companies have a wide range of diesel cars?

wiffleballtony > BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast.
11/12/2015 at 23:40

Probably a bunch in Europe. Plus VW is having emissions issues with the VW gas engine.