Thats where they keep the keys.
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VW say that the cars will be:
returned to commerce or exported once U.S. regulators approve appropriate emissions modifications
In Europe, affected cars have had software updates, some also having a ‘flow transformer’ device fitted. VW have claimed that it won’t affect performance or economy, but there’s some evidence that it has reduced fuel economy.
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Neither do the current generation of EV and plug-in hybrid batteries. Earlier less-efficient Li-Ion cells used some lanthanum, but current tech, like the cells produced at Tesla’s gigafactory, use no rare earths at all.
Also, some DC electric motors use rare earths for permanent magnets. But Tesla’s motors are AC induction motors invented by Nikola Tesla, and use no magnets at all.
And AC induction motors can replace DC motors in almost all applications (and are gradually doing so, since they’re lighter and more efficient).
(In addition, there is no ‘crisis’ in rare-earth supplies or reserves, despite a lot of hyperventilating press claiming that there is.)
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Gold star for realising this is a point. I suspect your car may not do so well.
The vehicles that were 40x the emission standards were not VW’s. In Europe, VW’s were among the cleanest, and the worst was, if I remember rightly, a small Fiat. Apparently, this was something that everyone in the industry at the right level knew everybody else did, and there was nothing special about VW.
I was reading P.J.O’Rourke’s ‘Parliament of Whores’. In there, he talks about the NHTSA who he visited, and their report on Sudden Acceleration Incedents. This was when an automatic car suddenly took off instead of slowing down. After a lengthy investigation it was concluded that there was no other explanation other than the driver trod on the accelerator instead of the brake. However, in public this was presented as a problem with the Audi 5000 because it happened to be a low-priced foreign car (PJ’s words, not mine). The report came too late to save Audi from the ignorance, credulity, opportunism and sheer Luddite malice directed towards that corporation and it’s products (again, PJ’s words, not mine). Familiar pattern?
So, do not expect the cars on US roads any time soon. But that’s because they are foreign, and not because they cannot be fixed.
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I wasn’t too worried about the supplies—my understanding was that the mining of those elements is particularly nasty. But obviously my info is super out of date (hence my 15-year-old car!), and I really appreciate the info!
You have the choice of the buyback or mitigation. VW has a fix, and if you don’t get that fix after the deadline, your vehicle will not be allowed to pass emissions tests.
So they say this cost them 7.4b, but I think that number is likely bullshit. VW is also a bank, and they finance their own vehicles. VW the bank is considered harmed by their own emissions cheating, and are owed a portion of the reparation value. This isn’t money that goes onto the a car’s principle, it’s money that they just get to keep. So I’m pretty sure that 7.4b is including money that they pay back to themselves.
If you’re making a movie where you really want to beat the Blues Brothers for automotive destruction, then there must be some use for a whole airport full of cars.
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Been thinking about this too lately. We have a 2005 Jetta Wagon that has been super reliable for many years now. It would be cool to have an electric or hybrid, but I don’t know if the economics pencil out. Also, I’m in Anchorage, which did away with its emissions testing a few years ago and there are so many diesel pickups here already, that aren’t going away, that one less TDI 2.0 isn’t going to change anything.
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Could you provide a reference or two? I’m genuinely interested. From what I have read it seems that the crisis is less about supply and reserves and more about the fact that the principal producer is China, while the US hasn’t had a working mine in the past two years.
Ah, I see your point.
I know some are critical of Lovins and his analyses, so I will read this more closely with a grain of salt, but it seems like good place to start.
Now that Trump plans to roll back emissions, expect these mephistic babies to be back on the road in no time
Even in EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt’s wettest of wet dreams, he won’t be rolling back standards that permit these cars to get back on the road as is.
This, however, does seem all too possible. What law prevents it? By definition, certainly none of the destination country.
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We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
This place is not a place of honor… no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here… nothing valued is here.
What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
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Wish they’d just strip the engines from these and retrofit them with electric drivetrains. Shouldn’t be too expensive, and it’d be a great sign of VW actually giving a damn.
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