Volkswagen pollution fraud gets still bigger

This video says about itself:

VW Evasion Likely Led to Dozens of Deaths

5 October 2015

According to an Associated Press statistical and computer analysis, Volkswagen’s pollution-control chicanery has not just been victimless tinkering, killing between five and 20 people in the United States annually in recent years. The software that the company admitted using to get around government emissions limits allowed VWs to spew enough pollution to cause somewhere between 16 and 94 deaths over seven years, with the annual count increasing more recently as more of the diesels were on the road. The total cost has been well over $100 million.

That’s just in the United States. Engineers say it’s likely far deadlier and costlier in Europe, where more VW diesels were sold. Scientists and experts said the death toll in Europe could be as high as hundreds each year, though they caution that it is hard to take American health and air quality computer models and translate them to a more densely populated Europe.

Read more here.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV:

Volkswagen fraud affair: Updating cars does not help

Today, 21:06

The fraud scandal at Volkswagen is not over yet. Diesel cars that have been updated since there was fraudulent software in their engines appear to emit more nitrogen after that update than before it. Volkswagen had emphasized that the update would supposedly have no negative impact on the functioning and performance by the diesel engines.

In the autumn of 2015 for the first time diesel cars were recalled for updates at the garages. In the Netherlands this happened from January this year on. During the updates the part that can manipulate the nitrogen values is removed.

This summer the Italian consumer organisation decided to test the Audi Q5, a car made by the Volkswagen Group. Before the software update, the car already emitted more than the standard for nitrogen emissions (10.6 percent). After the update it turned out that the car was 25 percent over the norm.

Unacceptable, says German consumers organisation VZBV. In a letter to the German Minister of Transport Alexander Dobrindt the organization demands that all repaired cars are tested thoroughly again by an independent party. …

The requirement is consistent with the opinion of Volkswagen inquiry committee which has been appointed by the minister earlier.

USA: THE FAILURES OF THE ‘CLEAN AIR ACT’ “Researchers, former EPA officials, state regulators and others interviewed by the Center said it’s impossible for states to maintain vigorous enforcement amid significant cutbacks.” [Center for Public Integrity]