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Largest Auto-Scandal Settlement In US History: Judge Approves $15 Billion Volkswagen Settlement (usatoday.com) 128

Posted by BeauHD from the three-commas dept.
A federal just has approved the largest auto-scandal settlement in U.S. history, a $14.7 billion settlement concerning Volkswagen Group's diesel car emissions scandal. USA Today reports: U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco approved the sweeping agreement between consumers, the government, California regulators and the German automaker in a written ruling a week after signaling he was likely to sign off. He said the agreement is "fair, reasonable and adequate." The settlement comes about a year after Volkswagen admitted that it rigged 11 million vehicles worldwide with software designed to dodge emissions standards. The company is still facing criminal investigations by the U.S. Justice Department and German prosecutors. The U.S. probe could lead to additional financial penalties and criminal indictments. About 475,000 Volkswagen owners in the U.S. can choose between a buyback or a free fix and compensation, if a repair becomes available. VW will begin administering the settlement immediately, having already devoted several hundred employees to handling the process. Buybacks range in value from $12,475 to $44,176, including restitution payments, and varying based on milage. People who opt for a fix approved by the Environmental Protection Agency will receive payouts ranging from $5,100 to $9,852, depending on the book value of their car. Volkswagen will also pay $2.7 billion for environmental mitigation and another $2 billion for clean-emissions infrastructure.
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Largest Auto-Scandal Settlement In US History: Judge Approves $15 Billion Volkswagen Settlement More

Largest Auto-Scandal Settlement In US History: Judge Approves $15 Billion Volkswagen Settlement

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  • Wow (Score:2, Insightful)

    by shadowp157 ( 4724197 )
    I'm genuinely surprised this story has been on the front page this long: a) without a comment, and b) without a comment from someone making a snarky remark about global warming being fake and how its killing businesses. Good on you Slashdot.

    • Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @05:25PM (#53150309)

      How about a snarky comment about how if you make useful physical good and do something illegal, you get a real penalty, whereas if you make a fortune by shuffling money around on paper and do something illegal causing a massive crisis that threatens the whole economy, you don't even get a slap on the wrist?

      I'm not trying to defend Volkswagen here, or imply they were unjustly punished, just pointing out that this seems to be the only time there's any justice.

      • Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @04:41AM (#53152705) Homepage

        Defend volkswagen how about this. Senior executives decided to scam the public and sell more vehicles to pump up their bonuses without doing the additional work. So investors got cheated with a scam to over pay executives for a lie and then paid the fine for being victims of that scam. How the fuck about we start sending corrupt executives to jail instead of making the people who pay the wages of the corrupt executives and who got cheated, always ending up paying.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The company is still facing criminal investigations by the U.S. Justice Department and German prosecutors.

      And it's been more than a year, with nothing. When this story first broke, there was this:

      software dev/test audit trails are almost certain to pinpoint who embedded the code and who authorized it. You can actually see who asked the developer to write that code," said Nikhil Kaul, a product manager at test/dev software maker SmartBear Software. "Then if you go upstream you can see who that person's boss was...and see if testing happened...and, if testing didn't happen. So you can go from the bottom up to nail everyone."

      Except, you can bet that the people at the top who authorized it (or at least didn't condemn it) probably never actually sent a traceable e-mail to anyone. Nor did they touch any code. Nor do they appear in any meeting minutes. These sorts of discussions tend to happen in a very informal manner, and for good reaso

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Well, it IS killing businesses, not to mention costing us all billions in lost tax dollars that end up lining the pockets of corrupt bureaucrats and snake oil salesmen selling "miracle green cures", but frankly, that's a different discussion altogether. What burns me about this is that this is nothing more than "example-making".

      Understand, ALL of the car manufacturers do this. ALL. OF. THEM. (Even Tesla. They just fake the numbers on how far their cars can actually drive, and how "green" they are.) The

      • Yet VW themselves designed a car that gets over 250 miles per gallon 2 years ago. Its not unrealistic, that's just what you've been taught. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        They do it because the CAFE and air standards are unrealistic and stupid. It's good that we have standards, but we have raised them too high too fast and NOBODY can make those numbers without cheating in one way or another. Either through "creative accounting" "creative calculating" or straight up fudging the tests, as VW has.

        The fix they propose to apply will make the cars meet those very standards you claim are impossible to meet. How do you explain that?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          by lowering horsepower and making the cars horrible to drive ? yeah anyone can do that.

        • Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)

          by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @06:26PM (#53150627)

          They do it because the CAFE and air standards are unrealistic and stupid. It's good that we have standards, but we have raised them too high too fast and NOBODY can make those numbers without cheating in one way or another. Either through "creative accounting" "creative calculating" or straight up fudging the tests, as VW has.

          The fix they propose to apply will make the cars meet those very standards you claim are impossible to meet. How do you explain that?

          You guys got this all wrong.. This IS NOT a global warming issue, at least not directly. The EPA rules VW bent where about air quality.

          NOx is a serious pollution problem, but it is NOT a greenhouse gas...

          However, in this case, meeting the NOx standards runs counter to green house gas emissions. The likely solution for VW is to lower power output, add a urea injection system and lower fuel economy, all of which will up operating costs for the owners. This will ADD to CO2 emissions for each mile these cars drive, but it will also make the air we inhale cleaner in areas where lots of these cars drive....

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by sjames ( 1099 )

            Yes, I know CAFE doesn't address CO2. It addresses NOx which etches buildings (and people's lungs).

      • Electric cars have zero tailpipe emissions (no tailpipe). So how are they faking it?

    • I'm genuinely surprised this story has been on the front page this long: a) without a comment, and b) without a comment from someone making a snarky remark about global warming being fake and how its killing businesses. Good on you Slashdot.

      How does the specific NOx emission issue they where cheating on have anything directly to do with global warming/climate change? NOx is not a greenhouse ga so this was about air quality not C02 emissions...

      It's *really* hard to clean up those high compression diesel engines without using urea injection, which comes at a increased price, lower power output, lower economy and higher maintenance cost. VW was just trying to save a few hundred bucks a car and keeping it's power and fuel economy up by skipping

      • I wasn't necessarily tying the VW scandal to global warming. I was literally surprised that no one had made such a comment after 14 minutes, knowing how often such a comment appears on slashdot. Especially where one might assume the two are connected.
    • That is about $30,000 per car sold in the US. So they are basically refunding everything and eating all sales over many years as a total loss. That makes me wonder how much profit they make on each car under normal circumstances.

  • Do they get destroyed or re-sold? If they're re-sold, how cheap will they be?

  • I own one... (Score:3)

    by Temkin ( 112574 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @05:46PM (#53150413)

    I own a 2014 model... Less than 40k miles. Basically, I can turn my car in, and walk away with $30. According to them anyway... No restitution for sales tax and fee's paid when I bought it, no restitution for my lost time and the anguish of having to go to a car dealership and buy something else. Hell, I'm not sure they're even going to cover the sales tax to turn it in. I've moved states since buying it, and I think this state will want to collect taxes on the buyback...

    • So you will have had the free use of a car for two to three years because the amount of emissions wasn't what you expected. Did you buy your car specifically for the emissions? Or maybe you chose a diesel because they get better mileage?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        When did the OP say it was free? I can't speak for them but I would imagine that they paid every month for access to the car. Lets get something very clear. If you pay $300 a month for 5 years for access to a car, and then get all the money you gave them back the car was not free. It was $300 a month. The fact that you get your money back does not relieve you of the burden of paying it.

    • Re:I own one... (Score:5, Informative)

      by chill ( 34294 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @06:19PM (#53150597) Journal

      Uh, what? That has to be a typo.

      I have a 2013 with 95k miles on it. I still owe about $9,000. The deal will pay me about $18,000, so I'll walk away with $9,000 in cash after paying off the loan.

      I'm headed over to my dealer this weekend to see what kind of incentive he'll give me on top of that for sticking with VW. Considering new Jettas start around $15,000, I could end up with a new car (2017 model year) for almost nothing.

    • I own a 2014 model... Less than 40k miles. Basically, I can turn my car in, and walk away with $30. According to them anyway... No restitution for sales tax and fee's paid when I bought it, no restitution for my lost time and the anguish of having to go to a car dealership and buy something else. Hell, I'm not sure they're even going to cover the sales tax to turn it in. I've moved states since buying it, and I think this state will want to collect taxes on the buyback...

      So sue them...

      Seriously, get a lawyer, find a group of owners and sue....Class action lawsuits can pay of big, well if you are a lawyer they can... Good luck!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      You need to consider your options carefully. Don't jump at one settlement over the other without careful thought.

      If it were me, I'd take some time to think about it, like maybe 10 or 15 years, before I'd make up my mind.

    • Most everything you're complaining about is on the government, not VW. Basically the situation you're describing is like buying something from a store and paying sales tax, finding out it's defective, returning it for a refund, and the government refuses to reimburse you for sales tax initially paid, and then tries to tax you when use the refund to buy a replacement product.

      They shouldn't be able to have it both ways - either tax the initial purchase or the replacement purchase, but not both. But logic

  • your company out of business!

    Just for that we're going to try to FINE your company out of business!

    • Nobody is regulating anybody out of business. Go look at VW's stock performance up until this broke. There's just such a thing as too much coming from your tailpipe. If you ever lived in LA during the 60's, or hell, even up through the 90s then you'd understand.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      I robbed that liquor store fair and square! What's this crap about restitution and jail time?

      • I fail to see where VW stole anything or did anything that wasn't a response to an arm-twist.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )

          New cars in the U.S. must meet emissions regulations or you can't drive it. So a new car that doesn't meet requirements is not drivable and so is not fit for purpose. But they represented that it was. So if you bought one, they ripped you off. Would you prefer the government say "too bad, so sad, that's an expensive paperweight you have there"?

          Or perhaps you believe you're a special snowflake entitled to dump any amount of toxins you want into other people's air?

          • What I think is these little VW's pollute less than most any other diesel on the road and that over-regulation is keeping more reasonable and efficient vehicles off the road. I would rather see 20 of these VW's regardless of their firmware status than one Chevy Silverado Rollin' Coal. They rigged their computers because they being held to unrealistic expectations while some guy in an F350 dually who uses it to get groceries and show off doesn't have to worry about it.

            I'm not pro pollution. I'm pro common

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by sjames ( 1099 )

              The hack was to pass emissions without including a urea system. With or without the hack, nobody in the market for an F350 or similar was ever going to choose the VW. With the urea system, they could pass emissions without the cheat.

              As for the trucks, I'm all for tightening up regulations there, particularly when they are used exclusively as passenger vehicles for no good reason. Rolling coal should carry a hefty fine due to the willfulness.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      And yet other companies manage to stay in business without committing fraud.

      The reasons for emissions regulations are so that when consumers make the cost/performance tradeoff when buying a car, they don't externalize costs -- which is an economist's way of saying make other people pay for their choices. A car would be cheaper and perform better if it didn't have a catalytic converter (just dump your partially burned hydrocarbons on everyone else), EGRs (just dump your NOx on everyone else), PCVs (spread

  • Pollution standards good, but untennable (Score:4, Interesting)

    by caseih ( 160668 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @09:30PM (#53151481)

    To me this VW emissions scandal, and many others, kind of shows just how difficult if not impossible it is to set standards that apply at all time under all conditions in the real world. The only way to monitor emissions in real-world conditions is to monitor them in real time as we drive. Every car across the planet, and then relay that information to some central location. And then what I think you'll find is that most engines don't meet the strictest standards a lot of the time. And it will vary as much on people's driving habits as anything. Punch it off the light and you're going to emit a lot more particulates than cruising. Drive it hard while cold and you'll pollute regardless. And even gasoline engines likely emit much more particulate pollution than we thought before, especially with direct injection.

    That's not to say pollution standards aren't good. A car that meets standards under controlled conditions is going to be a lot cleaner under any circumstances than an engine that didn't meet those standards under controlled circumstances.

    • kind of shows just how difficult if not impossible it is to set standards that apply at all time under all conditions in the real world

      There's nothing wrong with the standards if someone is cheating on reporting them.

      he only way to monitor emissions in real-world conditions is to monitor them in real time as we drive.

      And that would fix a crafty engineer lying how? Or are you suggesting the EPA install a permanent monitoring system on every different make and model of car? Likely this will be installed by a manufacturer and then tested at a specific interval, to a specific standard .... which the car can detect and lie about.

      Easier solution. Jail time for people involved, big fine for the company, and show people that non-compliance won't b

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      A much simpler way would be to randomly select a small number of drivers of each model and fit their cars with emissions monitoring equipment. The sensors are tiny and often built in to modern vehicles anyway. Then just set an average limit per year, averaged over all the monitored drivers with a few outliers discarded. Real world measurements with randomized selection to prevent cheating.

      This would allow you to do other stuff like require only so many % degradation per year.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      What about putting a car into a big closed warehouse/hanger-style building in a rural area away from roads, and for a few hours drive it around with a mix of stop-and-go and cruising, then measure the pollution in the warehouse?

      Temperature and humidity may be difficult to control, but this would be more to catch cheating and blatant deviations from more controlled tests. In other words, controlled tests would still be the primary tool, but the warehouse test is to verify things don't differ too much from co

  • Who gets all this free money? I will probably be collected over years, but what does it go for to reduce the deficit? Why not give it to the people to help spur the economy, or use it to find the Mars missions or something positive, instead of some layers pockets.

  • GM covering up and failing to recall vehicles for a known ignition switch issue that led directly to the deaths of 13 people:
    $35 million

    Volkswagen fiddling their emissions tests:
    $14.7 billion

    Hmmm......

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