As I anticipated, the fix to VW’s emissions problems may be very difficult to sell:
Once the sting of the lie fades, the US customers who bought 482,000 of those cars will feel the real pain. Because Volkswagen will be forced to recall those vehicles and somehow make them to meet federal standards. There are two apparent ways to do that, and owners who value performance, fuel economy, and trunk space won’t like either.
The first way is to reflash the engine control module so the vehicles stay in test mode all of the time. They’ll lose power and their mileage will drop. They just won’t be the vehicles that were advertised. Can you spell “class action lawsuit”? I knew you could.
The other way is to slap a urea tank onto those suckers just like the big boys use. That would be even more expensive for VW and the only likely place to put it is in the trunk. No trunk space? Once again the customers won’t have the vehicles they thought they were buying. IMO VW will need to sweeten the deal to keep from facing billions in legal fees.
Update
As widely expected, VW’s CEO has resigned. They’re drawing straws to see who succeeds him. Short straw wins loses becomes the next CEO.
The DoJ just “adopted” a policy of holding executives criminally responsible rather than depending on fines to the corporation they used to enrich themselves. Think it will happen here?
Most DOJ lawyers went to good law schools where they learned the meaning of terms like “mens rea.”
I meant to comment that I am glad you posted this. There was a class action filed earlier this week in the U.S. and yesterday I heard one had been filed in Canada. I wondered what injury the class had suffered. A vehicle that always passed emissions tests is arguably a betterment. The cars don’t seem defective or pose particular risks to the driver/passenger. The Canadian attorney seemed to be complaining about “reputational” damages incurred by people who trusted the brand and have lost faith. I just assumed the actual loss would only be the inconvenience of taking the car to the dealership and waiting around for an hour or two while the algorithm was modified.
It sounds like VW might be better off with some sort of buyback/ trade-in. Fiat Chrysler was recently ordered to offer buybacks for nearly 580,000 recalled Ram pickups and Dodge SUVs, because it was not completing needed recall repairs in a timely/orderly fashion. (Fiat says the actual number will be closer 200,000). Even if either of these fixes is acceptable, does VW have the infrastructure to make the repairs in a timely/orderly fashion?
That’s certainly the way it looks to me. IMO this whole affair is a nightmare that may take a decade to wrap up completely.