VW are in serious trouble in the USA because of their system to "fool" the emissions test. This could potentially bankrupt the company, as it affects almost 500,000 vehicles & there is a large fine per vehicle.
European authorities are now investigating them too.
Watch this space!

Details of the NOV here:
http://www3.epa.gov/otaq/cert/docume...a-09-18-15.pdf

a fine of apparently $24,000 per vehicle plus the fine overall......

not surprisingly VW shares have fallen....

I wonder if Mercedes and Daimler-Bentz knew about this too as most manufacturers will take aprt a competitors cars just to see what's new and that will include the software.....

Watch this space I suspect.....

There will be a vacancy for a new CEO coming up soon.....

Dave

It was noted on the BBC News yesterday that possibly many other companies have done the same.

My Skoda is made up of VW parts, so I am driving a dirty vehicle.

I believe the number of affected vehicles is 11 million.....presumably world wide!?

BBC suggesting today that it extends across the industry. CEO of VW apparently has been sent down the road although yet to be confirmed by VW. Still I suppose they will be pretty busy in meetings

Dick

Makes you wonder if Bosch are implicated as a major supplier of engine management parts?

Peter

It could be a lot more than that Dave. The fine is $37,500 per violation, not per vehicle. As I read the NOV, it would appear that there are at least three violations per vehicle.* Multiply that lot up & you end up with an astronomical figure.
They may not apply all of the fines & maybe not the full amount either, but the Yanks are known to be hard on foreign companies.
GM of course are still reeling from the effects of the ignition switch scandal so this may be used as an opportunity to hit one of their competitors.

* 1) Fitting the "defeat device", which is a specific violation.
2) Not declaring the "defeat device" in the Certificate of Conformity. (CofC).
3) Supplying vehicles that did not conform to the CofC.

Forgot to add, class action lawsuits have already been raised, on behalf of affected owners, seeking full refunds plus damages!

They checked a BMW X5 (also Bosch equipped?) as well Peter & found nothing wrong, but it may not use the same software as VW. I'm not sure whether the software would be a Bosch or VW item.
It seems only 4 cylinder engines are involved and the X5 was probably the V6 engine.

Nobody is going to bankrupt VW it's not worth it, too many folk are employed there and too much is at stake, politicians will be involved to smooth it over... They will be fined no doubt about that but making them go under does not bear thinking about, they will do a software update or something to cough! fix it.

ray.

Where any testing is done to a specific criteria, the VM's will adjust the mapping etc to meet that test criteria.

I suspect VW are just the first of several manufacturers to get caught.

Dill