I also recall the problems with exploding Firestone tires on specifically Ford vehicles from the early 2000's that probably killed around 250 people and injured thousands. Firestone was fined $500,000 and I can't seem to find a record of Ford being fined anything except settling and losing as well as losing a couple of lawsuits as a result of it.

VW fraud likely killed almost one hundred Americans but far more Europeans.

http://www.ibtimes.com/volkswagen-diesel-scandal-2015-emissi...

And probably saved equally many lives, by reducing CO2 per kilometer by almost 20%.

And they got bailed out by the US taxpayers.

I am just astonished at the outrage over some skirting of an arbitrary number in an emissions standard, in contrast to the comparative yawn over the things other automakers have done that they knew would actually kill people.

Diesel emissions kill tens of thousands of people each year.

It's probably hundreds of thousands across Europe. VW's scam has added to those deaths. VW killed far more than 150 people.

you're way off

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-vw-pollution-footprint...

http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-estimate-the-death-to...

while pollution will affects almost everyone on earth, the cumulative effect is not that much and pollution is not a major cause for deaths to begin with

http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.wrapper.ENVHEALTH3?lang=en...

From your link:

> At present, outdoor air pollution kills in excess of 3 million people every year, and automobile exhaust is a significant part of the problem.

Are you talking about this bit?

> the harmful nitrogen oxides emitted by Volkswagen’s affected diesel vehicles – which the US Environmental Agency claims were 40 times higher than the legal level – could be responsible for as many as 106 deaths in the US between 2009 and 2015.

That's the US, where diesel is not as common as Europe.

Your link says that:

> From a global perspective, the actual death toll could be much higher.

600 000 premature deaths and of the diseases caused by air pollution in the WHO European Region in 2010

http://www.euro.who.int/en/media-centre/sections/press-relea...

Some percebtage by car, of which some percentage by diesel cars, of which some are wv, of which some have defeat devices.

Edit: sorry totally misread parent post

> hundreds thousands death caused by the pollition increase from the defeating device

I didn't claim that.

[Citation Needed]

Air pollution kills 60,000 people per year: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/air-pollution...

NO2 kills about 2,600 people each year in London.

> The effects of the gas are particularly pronounced in London, where the Greater London Authority already recognises that it prematurely kills 2,600 Londoners each year;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/car-manufacturers/volksw...

Across Europe this is easily tens of thousands of people and it's easily an order of magnitude over 150.

NOx emission from road cars is only a percentage of air NOx > like, 34% [1]

VW market share is about 20% of that [2]

so about 4000 deaths if they polluted their fair share, but since they polluted 20% to 40% more that's about 2000/year additional deaths?

numbers are all over the place however, too many uncertainties and unmeasurable factors.

also my number doesn't come anywhere close to other estimates[3]

[1] http://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/aqeg/nd-...

[2] http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/...

[3] http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-estimate-the-death-to...

Polluting the environment kills people too.

And CO2 kills also people. VW's cars had far lower CO2 emissions than competitors.

That remains to be seen. CO2 is fairly innocuous, and already makes up a large percent of the volume of air. It's theorized that it leads to climate change (that being said, 8000 years ago Europe was also in an ice age, yet it thawed without mankind's help), but for the present time the amount of deaths that can be directly blamed on CO2 from cars (remember, people and animals create more CO2 than vehicles) is non-existent. Even if mankind's CO2 use does tip the scale enough to definitively kill millions, more CO2 is produced from power plants, ships, industrial ranching and burning forests than is produced by cars (especially VW cars).

On the other hand, the other gases released by diesel-burning automobiles do show direct health consequences, and VW has done the most to propagate diesel vehicles...

> CO2 is fairly innocuous, and already makes up a large percent of the volume of air.

Its fairly innocuous at naturally occurring levels, which are not a "large percent" of the air. Nitrogen, Oxygen, and -- if you want to be extremely generous and say that "almost 1%" is "a large percent" -- Argon are the only things that have a remotely plausible case for being a large percent of the atmosphere, and together make up around 99.9%.

Carbon dioxide makes up a large percent of the remaining ~0.1%, but...

> CO2 is fairly innocuous, and already makes up a large percent of the volume of air.

397 ppm, to be exact, or 0.0397%.

Just because no number of people were killed at present doesn't mean it's not a serious offense.