October   2015

VW’s Proposed Fix For The 482,000 Sold In USA Will Not Meet Emission Standards

Unable to Fix Emissions Issues

In the midst of the Volkswagen suit, fixes for the issue have emerged. However, the fixes will not make owners of any of the VW cars affected by the recall happy.

The cars sold in Europe will be having software and hardware update. In the United States, however, these fixes will not be enough to deactivate the defeat device and still have the cars operate within the legal emissions limit. When the device is not active - or when it is taken out of the equation altogether - VW cars emit up to 40 times more emissions than what the legal limit in the United States allows.

There are two fixes for the United States cars, but neither will make owners particularly happy.

The first of the two fixes is to run the cars in test mode the entire time. However, when they run in this mode for a long, sustained period of time, the cars lose some fuel economy. Drivers won't be happy with this since VW has advertised that the cars have great fuel economy, and therefore would have to spend more on fuel than they want to.

If this is the case for the fixes, then the... read article

David Goldman

VW May Use Loophole To Avoid Criminal Charges

Clean Air Act and VW

The Clean Air Act was passed in 1970, but 45 years later, it may be giving car companies a way to ditch improving their car emissions and keep going with carbon emissions at an alarming rate. There is a loop-hole in the law that keeps the car companies from having penalties if they have issues.

The loophole in the Clean Air Act does not give any particular punishment for automakers. While many other kinds of companies are legally liable under the Clean Air Act, car makers won the ability to skirt around the legal limits of emissions thanks to lawmakers who were sympathetic to the automakers. The automakers instead face civil penalties when charges are pressed - which, Wall Street Report states, are easier to implement against the automakers because of the loophole.

The entire case started when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) started to investigate Volkswagen after devices were found that skirts the legal emissions limit. These devices are called defeat devices, and are used to keep the emissions detectors from noticing how much was being emitted. The government and the state of California were feeling lied to - as were many consumers - about what was... read article

Bernard Walsh