Re: My issue
"How is this a shock?!"
I'll tell you why this is a shock, but first...
It is no secret that manufacturers go to the edge in meeting the requirements put upon them. This is part of the reason that everyone knows that the fuel consumption numbers in the formal EU testing are not the numbers that they get in real life driving. The test conditions are unrealistic, the manufacturers cheat (mildly) and the drivers are either not good enough or, quite often, not as bothered about fuel consumption as they would like others to think.
And then someone uses those numbers to set tax levels, which all works out just about ok, if everyone cheats more-or-less the same amount, and the tax limits are set with that in mind.
But then VW finds a way that they are not falsifying limits by 10 - 20%, but by 15x to 40x (depending on which reports you read or believe). In the mild cheating case, no real harm is done if everyone is cheating by roughly the same amount and the various limits are set taking the need for a 'fiddle factor' into account. In the VAG case, it isn't just a small percentage and it isn't (doesn't currently seem to be) that everyone is cheating by the same amount. Oh, and some people die, but they probably weren't a target market group for VW, so that doesn't matter much. (Well, I mean, 'even when they were alive, they probably weren't a target market group' - they are certainly not, now that they are dead, but you probably guessed that.)
Worse still, some smug gits, who had bought a green, save-the-planet, be-friendly-to-your-local-polar-bear, VW have now less reason for smugness than they thought they had. I wonder how VAG's various Ad agencies are going to try to spin their way out of this one?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
