Renault, Peugeot cars software fraud

This British punk rock music video is called THE BUZZCOCKS – FAST CARS (LIVE 1981).

This blog post is not about cars being fast or not. It is also not about fraudulent software in cars for covering up pollution.

Translated from Belgian daily De Standaard today:

How Renault and Peugeot cheated their customers

In reality, a Citroën logo costs 10 euros

Customer thinks that it is worth more than 20 euros

Why would Citroën ask 10 euros?

An ornamental element for the radiator grille of the popular Citroën C4 Picasso? The French constructor set the price at 27.42 euros, but can also ask at least 40.83 euros for it. The door covering of the Berlingo? 50.36 euros instead of 21.6 euros. And the finish of the wheelhouse in the Peugeot 308 may cost 82.54 instead of 38.49 euros.

All of them are price determinations based on the algorithms in the Partneo software. That computer program was developed in the mid-2000s by a French expert in the optimization of industrial profit margins. Partneo is a particularly sophisticated system that gives ‘optimization’ almost a new meaning. …

The developer of Partneo set up the company Acceria to market its software. In February 2010 Acceria and consultancy Accenture visited PSA, the group owning Peugeot and Citroën, to present Partneo. The presentation that was given there explains in detail how the system works. …

The rear-view mirror of the third generation of the Renault Clio – with which Partneo previously went into business – cost 10 euros to make and was sold for 79 euros before the introduction of Partneo. But after calculations by Partneo, that price rose to 165 euros.

VW workers are also being forced to pay with their jobs for the actions of top VW and Audi executives who oversaw the intentional programming of diesel engines to activate their emission controls only during laboratory emissions testing. VW has been forced to pay €28 billion thus far for manipulating diesel engines, while Audi recently accepted fines of €800 million. Similar scandals have engulfed Jeep, Volvo, Renault, Hyundai and other automakers, with Fiat Chrysler announcing Wednesday that was recalling 865,000 vehicles after settling claims that it manufactured vehicles that emitted more pollution than legally allowed in the US: here.