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Reisal

VW at it again: More emission scandal nonsense

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Congrats for having a post smaller than half the character limit of a Tweet.

For those that don't want to read, Volkswagon was busted for a second time cheating on emission test results. They face fines of up to $37,400 per vehicle because they give off up to 9 times the allowed nitrogen oxygen emissions than is allowed.

Personally, I don't care, but if they cheated, others may have as well.

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dio said:

Personally, I don't care, but if they cheated, others may have as well.


It's terrible but lets be honest, various other companies will be up to similar shenanigans. They just haven't been caught.

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Captain Toenail said:

It's terrible but lets be honest, various other companies will be up to similar shenanigans. They just haven't been caught.


Clearly this was just a witch hunt or someone didn't pay their blackmail money. :-)

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Everyone was pretty gullible in the first place just swallowing it that the manufacturers had magically found ways to un-diesel diesel engines.

The best bit is the early and hideously unreliable DPF devices in 5-10 year old diesels that cost a fucking fortune to replace when they fail to regenerate, are not doing anything to help anyway...

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It's 2015, and cars still aren't fying, and they're still using diesel AND gas.
God Damn you Doc Brown.

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They used to do emissions tests on older cards where I live. If people could find ways of cheating those, it's easy to see how manufacturers could do it on a large scale.

SavageCorona said:

Diesel is a stupid fuel why do cars even use it when you can't set it on fire with a naked flame?


You get more mileage than petrol. Even if their price is exactly the same. Although diesel is usually cheaper than petrol to boot.

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Tritnew said:

It's 2015, and cars still aren't fying, and they're still using diesel AND gas.
God Damn you Doc Brown.


Way too many companies make money on land based vehicles. Plus then there's a safety issue. I know you made a joke but sadly there's not going to be a common hover car.

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SYS said:

They used to do emissions tests on older cards where I live. If people could find ways of cheating those, it's easy to see how manufacturers could do it on a large scale.


You get more mileage than petrol. Even if their price is exactly the same. Although diesel is usually cheaper than petrol to boot.


IIRC Top Gear reviewed a Honda that ran off hydrogen but you can only drive it in one city due to the fact it's the only city that has hydrogen refueling stations.

I'm unable to find the video of the car but he also did a hydrogen powered bike

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What is particularly stupid about diesel in the UK is that our car tax system since 2001 is based on the amount of CO2 a car emits.

So for my current petrol car I pay £180 a year.

Diesel emits less CO2 at a given power output / cubic capacity, so I'm tempted now to get back in to a diesel at £110 a year or so.

This completely disregards the NO2 and all the other shit diesel puts out, but combine the lower tax with better economy and some attractive driving characteristics like improved torque, it's not hard to see why diesel won't die here in spite of everything.

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Diesel engines seem to last longer. Some anyways. We had some ten year old Econolines where some guys just picked it up and told us he was going to get the engine out and scrap the rest. It might just be that model of engine, but I've heard it's a trend with diesel engines to last longer and run smoother. But they really suck in cold-weather states because you got to warm the damn things up all the time.

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It gets words worse, looks like they've also cheated some of their petrol engine tests as well.

dio said:

I know you made a joke but sadly there's not going to be a common hover car.

Not unless someone has the money and foresight to start embedding magnetic levitation rails in the highways and byways.

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GreyGhost said:

Not unless someone has the money and foresight to start embedding magnetic levitation rails in the highways and byways.


No thanks. It costs enough nowadays just to keep a car on the road, gawd knows how expensive it would be to keep one hovering above it.

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GreyGhost said:

It gets words, looks like they've also cheated some of their petrol engine tests as well.


I will be assuming you mean "worse".

The VW stock is very nearly half as much as it was before the scandal started, 50% is quite a dip. At least in the US when a company is virtually run by share holders which are rabid and wielding very large knives, there is the possibility that the company gets restructured or under new management.

Regardless, this will hurt them years and possibly even decades from now. They might not ever live it down for quite some time. It is common among people that when they know someone did something wrong, that they will constantly remind said person and others around them. It is possible for the saying "I failed my emissions test" or some other test with the expression "I drove in with my Toyota/Ford/etc. and they said I drive a Volkswagon.".

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Dave The Daring said:

No thanks. It costs enough nowadays just to keep a car on the road, gawd knows how expensive it would be to keep one hovering above it.

If operating costs are an issue, maybe you should consider harnessing centrifugal forces (which are free) to get your car hovering. Play out just enough tether cable to offset the weight of your vehicle and its contents and it should work a treat - apart from having to avoid snagging hazards like overhead power lines, and your car developing an annoying tendency to head for the equator.

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GhostlyDeath said:

The VW stock is very nearly half as much as it was before the scandal started, 50% is quite a dip. At least in the US when a company is virtually run by share holders which are rabid and wielding very large knives, there is the possibility that the company gets restructured or under new management.

There already is new management, but you could say they just sacrificed the proper scapegoats. Ownership of the VW Group, however, is a quite complicated matter. I'd say the involvement of Lower Saxony and the conservative industrialist approach of the Piechs and Porsches guarantees there won't be any drastic American-style restructuring and outsourcing. Furthermore, the losses from the stock market and fines will be massive, but I don't think VW's actual sales will hurt that much in Europe and Asia. As for the US market, afaik they were never quite as successful there as everywhere else in the world, so it's more misery piled on their sickliest division.

GhostlyDeath said:

They might not ever live it down for quite some time.

Certainly maybe.

GhostlyDeath said:

It is possible for the saying "I failed my emissions test" or some other test with the expression "I drove in with my Toyota/Ford/etc. and they said I drive a Volkswagon.".

Indubitably, sort of.

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GreyGhost said:

It gets words worse, looks like they've also cheated some of their petrol engine tests as well.


Not unless someone has the money and foresight to start embedding magnetic levitation rails in the highways and byways.


I remember reading that in Popular Mechanics or Science maybe 25 years ago. Even as a kid I thought well first of all that costs money second of all how would you change lanes or pull over to the side of the road? Third of all like the driverless car... who gets sued for an accident?

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GreyGhost said:

If operating costs are an issue, maybe you should consider harnessing centrifugal forces (which are free) to get your car hovering. Play out just enough tether cable to offset the weight of your vehicle and its contents and it should work a treat - apart from having to avoid snagging hazards like overhead power lines, and your car developing an annoying tendency to head for the equator.


Uh-huh? Why don't you try it out on your car first and let me know how it goes?

Oh and by the way, I'm still waiting for my kitten gun. It would be nice if you could get that off the ground. Thanks.

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Dave The Daring said:

Oh and by the way, I'm still waiting for my kitten gun. It would be nice if you could get that off the ground. Thanks.


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Dave The Daring said:

Oh and by the way, I'm still waiting for my kitten gun. It would be nice if you could get that off the ground. Thanks.

Why would you need a special gun for kittens? I would think any ordinary handgun would be more than powerful enough to kill a kitten.

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Inkie said:


That's one ugly looking kitten!

Cynical said:

Why would you need a special gun for kittens? I would think any ordinary handgun would be more than powerful enough to kill a kitten.


It's not a gun to be used against kittens, it simply turns Doom monsters into kittens. Also, some faecal element to the weapon would be nice, because poop is funny.

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Boo, you had me excited at the prospect of an army of gun-toting kittens. Misleading advertising!

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Clonehunter said:

Diesel engines seem to last longer. Some anyways. We had some ten year old Econolines where some guys just picked it up and told us he was going to get the engine out and scrap the rest. It might just be that model of engine, but I've heard it's a trend with diesel engines to last longer and run smoother. But they really suck in cold-weather states because you got to warm the damn things up all the time.

The basic lumps tend to last longer because there are less moving parts and temps are typically a bit lower than in petrols, but what won't last forever is all the shit that go with modern diesels - turbos, dual-mass flywheels, DPFs, etc. etc.

If you want something that'll endure for cheap, then yeah an old diesel is probably the way to go over a more recent one now.

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dew said:

Boo, you had me excited at the prospect of an army of gun-toting kittens. Misleading advertising!


Well currently there's nothing to advertise anyway, because a certain person won't make me my kitten gun even though he more or less kinda promised to make it for me, although not in so many words. :(

Oh well, at least I can still play with my poop cannon.

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Dave The Daring said:

Uh-huh? Why don't you try it out on your car first and let me know how it goes?

I'm considering that, but first have to convince the petty bureaucrats at the motor registry that my car will be -

  • still roadworthy
  • not an aircraft
Since it will technically be more than 4.5 metres tall, I probably won't be allowed to drive under bridges.

Oh and by the way, I'm still waiting for my kitten gun. It would be nice if you could get that off the ground. Thanks.

That's a work-in-progress. I'm hoping to get the sprite modelling done without facing charges of cruelty to animals.

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Clonehunter said:

But they really suck in cold-weather states because you got to warm the damn things up all the time.

It's not the engine, but rather the fuel itself. Diesel and even kerosene blends may as well be molasses in cold weather. Engines can't run very well, if at all on that shit until the fuel mixture itself is warm enough.

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GreyGhost said:

I'm considering that, but first have to convince the petty bureaucrats at the motor registry that my car will be -

  • still roadworthy
  • not an aircraft
Since it will technically be more than 4.5 metres tall, I probably won't be allowed to drive under bridges.

That's a work-in-progress. I'm hoping to get the sprite modelling done without facing charges of cruelty to animals.


If it does happen to be classified as an aircraft, you will have to maintain a minimum altitude above the ground. Try not to fall out or run out of levitation.

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