We're under assault by a Teutonic Terror. About half a million US diesel cars and 11 million worldwide sold by Volkswagen AG, including VWs, Audis, Seats, and Škodas, appear to have software that tricks emissions tests. Actual emissions are "40 times higher" we're told. And people are dying.
"Quatsch!" as they say in German. Nonsense! It's just another car mass hysteria, like "runaway" Toyotas a few years ago and runaway Audis before that. At least one freaked-out occasional car reviewer engaged in public self-flagellation: "I was fooled by Volkswagen's diesel hype--and I'm sorry," she blubbered. She went on to attack the entire notion of clean-running diesel cars and concluded, "Two of my closest friends are asking me what will happen with their cars; I have no idea."
No, you really don't, lady. Owners will take their VWs to a shop where the sensors will be fixed. The End.
Look. VW knowingly broke the law and gained competitive advantage thereby. It deserves to be punished and fear not! It's already lost over $30 billion in stock value (more than a third), and now faces massive fines and class-action suits from owners. Given that people rarely buy new or used cars on the basis of emissions levels, it's hard to see how these owners were harmed. But VW will have to deal with them.
As for the rest of the "victims," almost everything you've been told is wrong. The emissions concern just one compound, nitrogen oxides (NOx). The 40 times figure applies to a single model year of a single Volkswagen under certain driving conditions. Another vehicle under different conditions was just nine times higher. And both figures relate to a standard the EPA just happened to pick. And the EPA is far from a disinterested party.
Like any health agency or organization, routinely justifies its budget by exaggerating health problems. You know, like that U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention prediction last year of as many as 1.5 million Ebola cases, when ultimately there were about 13,000. So the EPA, the notorious California Air Resources Board, and a cottage industry of grant-hungry scientists keep teasing data in a desperate effort to find some sort of statistically significant adverse health effect from ever-lower levels of any man-made pollutant. As I documented in my book "Polluted Science," the EPA now mandates that some pollution levels be lower than natural background rates. And yes, there's natural NOx, too.
"The fact is the VW cheat added probably not more than 0.2% on-road NOx," University of Denver Professor of Chemistry Donald Stedman told me, based on his just-published research in Environmental Science & Technology. He's one of the nation's top emissions experts.
When NOx combines with volatile organic compounds and bakes in sunlight it can form ozone, which is the main component of smog, plus fine particulate matter. In the traffic-choked Colombian city where I live, I can look at the air I breathe and sometimes need an inhaler when exercising. Surely high enough smog levels must push some people over the edge who have heart or respiratory conditions. But you can't find conditions like those here in the U.S. Indeed, according to the EPA, US ozone levels have dropped by a third since 1980. (This even as road traffic has doubled in that time.)
Nevertheless, that extra NOx from Volkswagens has killed "between five and 20 people in the United States annually in recent years, according to an Associated Press statistical and computer analysis." Great. Epidemiology by journalists. Given that over a million Americans annually die of heart and pulmonary disease, that's like "estimating" to have found a needle in a haystack the size of Mt. Everest. Meanwhile, over 30,000 Americans annually die in vehicular accidents, almost all from driver error. That's vastly higher per vehicle mile driven than in Canada and virtually all of Europe. Where's the panic?
Sadly, as noted, VW's actions are also being used to disparage diesel cars in the U.S., where environmentalists, the government (through subsidies) and the chichi types have long favored hybrid gasoline-electric cars even as half of all passenger vehicles sold in Europe are diesel. For good reason. Diesel cars, depending on usage, get about the same extra mileage as hybrids without the extra cost. (A Toyota hybrid 4-door Sedan LE in the U.S. costs about $4,000 more than that for the conventional gasoline engine.)
Diesel engines also last far longer than gasoline engines (there are Mercedes that are still going after 900,000 miles) and they have tremendous torque relative to engine size. That means they accelerate much faster, which is fun but also a tremendous safety feature when passing on a two-lane road. Diesel engines also emit less carbon dioxide, the primary "greenhouse gas" implicated in alleged "global climate change."
Indeed, only 35 percent of hybrid vehicle owners choose to purchase a hybrid again when returning to market, according to a Polk survey. That was in 2012, when fuel prices were near a historical high. The fuel savings weren't worth the drawbacks. The US needs more diesel cars, not less
Yes, hysteria is fun. The media and environmentalists are having a ball. But perspective says this is much ado about very little. Let's not throw the Beatle out with the bathwater.
We're under assault by a Teutonic Terror. About half a million US diesel cars and 11 million worldwide sold by Volkswagen AG, including VWs, Audis, Seats, and Škodas, appear to have software that tricks emissions tests. Actual emissions are "40 times higher" we're told. And people are dying.
"Quatsch!" as they say in German. Nonsense! It's just another car mass hysteria, like "runaway" Toyotas a few years ago and runaway Audis before that. At least one freaked-out occasional car reviewer engaged in public self-flagellation: "I was fooled by Volkswagen's diesel hype--and I'm sorry," she blubbered. She went on to attack the entire notion of clean-running diesel cars and concluded, "Two of my closest friends are asking me what will happen with their cars; I have no idea."
Diesel engines also last far longer than gasoline engines (there are Mercedes that are still going after 900,000 miles) and they have tremendous torque relative to engine size. That means they accelerate much faster, which is fun but also a tremendous safety feature when passing on a two-lane road. Diesel engines also emit less carbon dioxide, the primary "greenhouse gas" implicated in alleged "global climate change."
Indeed, only 35 percent of hybrid vehicle owners choose to purchase a hybrid again when returning to market, according to a Polk survey. That was in 2012, when fuel prices were near a historical high. The fuel savings weren't worth the drawbacks. The US needs more diesel cars, not less
Yes, hysteria is fun. The media and environmentalists are having a ball. But perspective says this is much ado about very little. Let's not throw the Beatle out with the bathwater.
