I don't know enough German to follow, but Google Translate helps me out a bit. Here's my question: We know VW had a cheat device to specifically detect the test and switch to a different map.

These other tests that show the cars pollute more in the "real world", is there any evidence that they actually detect the test and cheat like VW did? Or are they merely optimized for the speeds used in the test? These are two entirely different things. There's a huge difference between gaming the test and outright cheating. In one case, if you drive very very gently in the real world, you will get the test results. In the other case (VW) you could never hit those pollution numbers no matter how gently you drive (or how perfectly you replicate the testing drive cycle).

The second, from the evidence available to date.

In particular, this summary graphic is telling:

http://img3.auto-motor-und-sport.de/Abgastest-Wertung-fotosh... (blurry, sorry)

At the top of the NOx scale we have a VW TDI engine (albeit in an Audi Quatro application).

Near the bottom of the NOx scale we have... a VW TDI engine.

In other words, VW already had the capability to eliminate the emissions through design, but chose to cheat the tests instead. That is rather damning evidence, and serves as a rebuttal for those who think that VW is somehow being unfairly targeted.

Clearly, many other companies also need to lower their emissions, and regulators need to adopt meaningful tests. But to cheat the tests that do exist, and for no clear need (except possibly profit margins) is inexcusable.

What was at stake was to be able to sell into the US at all. For VW that may have been 'worth the risk', I think retrospectively they're happy to agree that it probably wasn't.

Indeed. And it is troubling to see only VW being targetted here, and with extremely high potential fines shown in the media.

If it turns out that other competitors did the same, VW – and even other German companies, due to the hit the brand "Made in Germany" got from this – might be able to sue the US via ISDS for lost sales in hundreds of billions.

That's not how it works, what will happen instead is that those other manufacturers will also be hit hard by the US regulatory entities.

That does not matter.

The media focus has been solely on VW, despite others doing the same.

This is enough that VW can show to be unfairly targeted, as it’s standard market practice.

If VW can show that others did the same, but did not get the same media resonance, then VW can sue for the lost sales based on an estimation of the difference in reputation loss.

Hell, even other companies in Germany have reported lost sales due to the "German engineering = pollution" that US media have pushed recently.

> The media focus has been solely on VW, despite others doing the same.

That's because there is evidence about VW.

> This is enough that VW can show to be unfairly targeted, as it’s standard market practice.

No, it really is not.

> If VW can show that others did the same, but did not get the same media resonance, then VW can sue for the lost sales based on an estimation of the difference in reputation loss.

It's an interesting theory about how the law could work but unfortunately somewhat detached from what I know about how the law actually works. VW does not get to claim any 'lost sales' directly attributable to their own conduct, regardless of who reported on it and how frequently even if all their competitors did it too. If VW has evidence that other manufacturers cheat as well they're probably more than welcome to present it. (And if they had such evidence they probably would.)

> Hell, even other companies in Germany have reported lost sales due to the "German engineering = pollution" that US media have pushed recently.

Yes, and VW is to blame for that. Not the US media.

The original report that caused this whole thing presented evidence for 9 companies.

9.

VW is not the only one in this whole situation.

The report shown that results from the tests did not match the actual usage. It raised questions that those companies most likely are tampering with tests, but nothing incriminating. It was speculated that possibly that the tests were not reliable.

In case of VW, in addition to that report an actual device to fool the tests was discovered.

Who specifically do you imagine they could sue?

You should go and read the report.

kuschku's comments only make sense if you assume the US media is a direct arm of the US government.

Or if you assume that you can just sue both separately.

(And, in reality, I’d say the US government is more influenced by the media than the other way around – as can be seen in the situation with Comcast, TWC, etc)

TWC?

Time Warner Cable

"Everybody else was breaking the law too" is not a valid excuse for breaking the law.

Obviously, no.

But if everybody else isn’t equally punished, or equally investigated, than that is against the constitution, too.

hello Janne,

You keep making these grand claims about the constitution and the law and this whole VW affair that have absolutely no basis in fact. Please stop that it is just throwing up a huge smokescreen and it measurably devalues the discussion.

I'm sure that it fits your worldview but fwiw no matter how hard and how often you write this stuff it does not make it true. The constitution has absolutely nothing to do with this, VW was not 'singled out' and you are actively harming your reputation on HN. As a German student I understand that you feel that VW has been treated 'unfair' but they brought this on themselves, BMW was tested as well and passed the test even though they too emitted more NOx than they should have depending on the circumstances, they did not use a 'test defeat device'.

From what we have in terms of evidence to date no other company has engaged in such blatant fraud in this respect as VW has. If you have evidence (as in hard evidence, not just hunches) that another manufacturer also employs a cheating device then you could make headlines the world over by sharing that proof and I for one would be very supportive of you.

But all these statements that defend VW and even suggest that VW could recover their losses because they've been treated unfairly are not based in fact and make it seem like you are of good intentions but other than that do not appear to have much knowledge of how these things work. So a word to the wise: you have but one reputation, you build it up slowly over the years and you can lose and/or damage that reputation quickly.

Please don't let your sense of indignation get the better of you and hurt your interests in the longer term.

Have a citation or reference for that? Because I don't think it's true. Equal protection, adhered to or not, doesn't relieve you of criminal culpability.

Media in the US is independent and not controlled by the government.

The amount of media VW gets over this issue is irrelevant to any damages you may try to conjure up.

People may say whatever they like.

Media Is independent in words but all the mainstream media outlets are controlled by handful of corporates (during 1990s, most of these outlets bought by few corporate houses). These houses have interests related to military-industrial complex. Victory of policies layed out since over 5 decades [0] for dividing and conquering middle east for greater profits can't be let to fail just because Russia decided to save Syria and Germany/France started pondering supporting Russia [1] upon confronting the enormous wave of refugees.

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10580490 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10718312

So we now have links between Syria, refugees, the MIC, Russia, Germany, France and somehow in the middle of that poor VW the victim of being used as the stick to push Germany back into compliance?

What do you think they would have used if VW had not conveniently committed fraud?

I just saw a comment by Noam Chompsky, "Americans don't know what's going on. But they don't even know that they don't know."

I think "Americans" can be replaced with "people in general" (including Europeans and Asians as well)

It's 'Chomsky' and I can't find a reference for that quote, where did you find that comment?

It's on here http://zcomm.org/wp-content/uploads/zbooks/www/chomsky/rab/r...

Simple searching on google showed me on the first page (third result).

The amount of truth we see is relative to the intension we're having. The rest just seems invisible to us.

Few more thoughts from Chomsky related to the theme of our discussion regarding truth:

“Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune.” (Exactly fit for responses I got re my geo-political remark)

“Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s really an easy way: Stop participating in it.” (Yay, so true. But we're more concerned about how perfect and moral our regulation structure is, that it punishes the right people with right evidence... but evidence can be shown when it's the most convenient time to show them)

“It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies.” (Who likes truth anyway?)

“For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit.”

("Hey, Germany ministers are towing the line and aren't repeating our propaganda, how can we show them their place?" "Well, let's call our regulatory depts., we must be having some violation reports waiting to be show light of the day at this opportune moment. Find the one with biggest potential impact, and, and we'll have the compliance of Germany without shotting a single bullet." "Yeah, this will also set example for other European vassals, who lately tries to have independent voice. They must be shown their right place before it's too late.")

That's only half an assertion. Can you say with certainty that the US government is not controlled by the media corporations either? Judging by the political "activism" regularly displayed by Fox and CNN, I think it's fair to say that the media exerts a lot of control over the executive and legislative branches.

For two entities to be independent, there needs to be little control in both directions.

>Can you say with certainty that the US government is not controlled by the media corporations either?

With certainty? No.

US Government is a collection of individuals theoretically bound by a (very-large) shared text, or program, if you will. Do media corporations have some measure of influence on some of those individuals? Undoubtedly.

I am fairly certain that the individuals who make up the US Government are not all on media corporation payrolls.

>Judging by the political "activism" regularly displayed by Fox and CNN, I think it's fair to say that the media exerts a lot of control over the executive and legislative branches.

This makes sense. US Government is structured such that it arises from the people it is governing. If that structure is to be used, it requires public communication (ie. media).

Undoubtedly there are ties. But you'd have to extrapolate to all media in all countries being in on this for this purpose. The VW scandal has been published widely outside the US. Even if the US government had simply fined VW and left it at that the thing would have been newsworthy.

You don't need to bribe all the media, just blow the whistle in one major outlet and rest will follow the shues for maximum coverage.

There is no plausible legal theory under which VW or other German brands could successfully sue ISDS.

Eh, yes?

If a US company does the same, but does not get the same media exposure, reputation loss, and fees, then it is unfair targeting.

VW can then directly sue, because they, as foreign company, were targeted, but another US manufacturer was not.

This is silly. It's like a burglar suing the police for catching him while other burglars got lucky and did not get caught.

There's an actual evidence they that VW was cheating so they deserved it. What would be great is that if they could spill the beans on other manufacturers so others would be punished as well.

That is simply not how it works in the US civil court system. Ask an attorney.

You might want to look a bit more into ISDS.. it's an international court which is agreed to in various trade treaties and allows corporations to sue foreign governments where that governments policies negatively affect the corporation.

One of the big concerns with TTP/TTIP is that they will expand the use and applicability of ISDS processes and this could impact things like environmental legislation.

Part of the concern about the use of ISDS is that the hearings are generally held in secret.

In this case I guess if it could be proven that the US government disadvantaged VW by applying fines to them whilst not prosecuting other companies who have done similar things, then if ISDS applies to this trade, it may be possible for VW to sue...

Only in those situations where the US government can be proven to have access to the same level of proof that fraud is being committed compared to the information they had on VW. Chances of success of such an operation: 0. Effect on the PR situation: -10000. Likelihood of engaging in such an action by VW: 0.

Anybody except for VW would be in a position to make a move regarding other manufacturers, according to a document linked elsewhere from a German auto magazine there is plenty of reason to suspect that other manufacturers are engaging in similar practices but nobody to date has proof.

Eh, the original document from WVU which the EPA used to go against VW also names evidence for several (I think 6) other manufacturers, by now, 9 are known to have done the same.

So, yes, it’s trivial to show that the EPA had the same amount of knowledge against others as they had against VW, because the original document already had that.

The original document from WVU detailed 3 vehicles, two by VW an one by BMW.

If you want an easy to digest article on the subject please read:

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/09/23/researcher-how-vw-got-cau...

And if you want less easy to digest material go read the actual study pdfs (they're linked in the wikipedia article on 'dieselgate' and are very interesting reading but it will take some time there are 100+ pages there).

So you are way off base with the claims in this comment.

Note that the WVU report does not state that evidence of a cheating device has been found. It was merely the catalyst (pun intended) in the whole affair causing the EPA to put a much bigger effort into the VW engine than they had up to that point and this is where the cheating device was uncovered.

The I in ISDS is for "not in the US civil court system", so the big unknown is how it will work there. I'd still bet a lot on nothing in that direction happen in the current VW case, but some uncertainty remains.

There's a geo-political angle to this targeting. You'd find that the VW emition scandle and fine announcement came just during the time when Germany leaders were starting to get a bit cozy with Russia over sanctions ETC (I remember it was latter half of September, you can check these facts by searching Google.)

Bollocks, the whole thing was initiated by a European non-profit that contracted the WVU.

(couldn't reply to your other comments as it seems the comment depth is reached.)

Let me make one thing clear: I've not defended VW for the cheating they've done, not even once. I've just drawn attention toward the bigger picture within these events have unfolded and because commenters have raised questions as to why VW has been targeted so swiftly despite it's apparent that other manufacturers are having similar issues (more or less).

These are common ways of how back-door negotiations and arm-twistings occur. Neither Obama nore Merkle would publically admit to you in your face of these things. But we the public remain foolish to dismiss such an evident corelation as conspiracy. Or do you think we live in a utopian world where every official action is guided by altruistic motive? Well if yes, you may very well see what's happening in Syria, the whole of world's major power are flighting their airforces, just to defeat bunch of terrorist? who are anyway financed by oil smuggling to countries part of the coalition .... give me a break.

You should read my earlier comment on US policy of wars in Middle East https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10580490

Well if you doubt that politics cannot plan and execute such policies for decades then you're fooling yourself. Evidence are right there just need to open our eyes.

> I've just drawn attention toward the bigger picture within these events have unfolded and because commenters have raised questions as to why VW has been targeted so swiftly despite it's apparent that other manufacturers are having similar issues (more or less).

But that isn't the case. There is 0 evidence that other manufacturers also included a defeat-the-test device, there is evidence that other manufacturers diesels exceed their permitted level of NOx in various circumstances but they do not employ a device that detects the tests and then re-programs the engine to comply with the test. It just so happens that under test conditions those engines more or less perform as advertised, there is no 'mode switch' based on the detection of a test in progress to reprogram the engine parameters. That's a totally different kettle of fish, the one is a narrow set of parameters where the engine will pass the test, the other means the engine will never perform as advertised except when under test.

Evidence will be shown when the right moment is.

HSBC was participating kneck to kneck with drug smugglers and making billions a week from that illegal and immoral trade. eventually they were fined only a few billion which they make from that same business within 2/3 weeks. Noone got jailed.

But what happened to the individuals who happened to run digital currency based platform for the same?

My point is that both were involved in similar illegal practices, but justice delivered to each was not equal. Surely justice was decided based on several interests, of which the law was mere one of the parameters (often an insignificant one when the convict is a powerful entity.)

Please read my other comments with facts supporting it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10718312

actions of this magnitude are generally guided by multiple and often hidden interests/agenda. Only if we able to perceive the bigger picture by analyzing from different angles.

Sorry, but that's just a smokescreen (pun not intended, hard to avoid).

Yes, VW got hit hard, but there is only one party that could have taken action to avoid this: VW itself. If they cheated that's entirely their choice. If other manufacturers have in fact cheated (and the evidence seems to be mounting that they did but maybe not quite as blatantly) then their turn will surely come.

Eh, the non-profit thing happened in 2013/2014.

The EPA ignored the results for a full year.

The VW CEO already resigned in April, several months before the EPA went crazy, due to it.

The reason a year passed is because the report does not indeed contain the sentence 'VW committed fraud', it simply notes some exceptional real-world performance issues for a specific vehicle under test and left it at that. The EPA then had to do a whole pile of work to figure out what exactly was going on and this led to the discovery of the defeat-the-test device.