Shifting Pass Emissions
Charles Laning
Over the past few years, Volkswagen, a German car company, has been recognized for more than its accomplishments. Only recently did that recognition hit the consumer's idea of the cars they have known and loved. The 2013-2016 models of the Volkswagen Golf, and Jetta with the TDI motor has US Environmental Authorities shaking their heads. For those people that want a sporty, functional yet fuel efficient car don’t look towards a Toyota Prius, however, a Volkswagen diesel engine.
The term “TDI” is actually a turbo diesel vehicle that gets upwards of 40-50 mpg on average. Once they hit the market, over 500,000 were sold in the US alone in about 14 months. Other competitors are now itching to start turboing production cars to squeeze every drop of gas out of the engine. That’s pretty astonishing for a non-electric car. As nice as these cars are for fuel efficiency, they aren’t for the air. I guess you could say this manufacturer has cheated the system.
Every 3-4 years or so, every licensed car must be “emission tested.” The purpose is to prevent any vehicles from polluting the air with too rich of fuel. An O2 sensor checks the amount of exhaust coming from the system in two places of it, to tell the computer to use less or more fuel. Volkswagen completely failed at their job to follow the guidelines. The investigators discovered that the Passat and Jetta models spewed 30 times the allowable level of nitrogen oxide. German automakers passed this by adding to the computer of the car an “emissions mode.” “It is to be assumed that the authorities will subsequently examine VW systems to determine if Volkswagen has installed test recognition into the engine control software (a so-called defeat device).” says the director of the Environmental Authorities.
This incident almost put the diesel branch of VW under into debt. Every owner of these cars is now making a financial decision whether or not to keep the car, or sell it back to the dealership for almost half of what they had payed for just a few years prior. The value of these cars significantly dropped to an all time VW low.
As I am a Volkswagen enthusiast, I am fairly biased to the situation at hand. I would say whether I believed in the company or not, just hold onto the car for as long as possible until the problem gets resolved and the recalls takes place. This occurrence does not change my view whatsoever towards the brand or the cars itself. Yes of course it’s wrong for the company to hide the dirt under the rug, but I don’t feel it was personal, but just business. It’s a flaw that the engineers had to surpass in order to ship the fuel efficient TDI’s out. They clearly didn't think of the trade off of efficient production to the investment of recalls at hand. 
"Will VW Buy Back Some of Its Diesel Cars?" Autoweek. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2016.
I wrote an article about this emissions scandal as well. The emissions problems have expanded to the V6 Diesel Powerplants as well, affecting the diesel variants of the VW Touareg, Porsche Cayenne, and Audi SUV's. The incurred fines of violating the emissions standards have also caused the VW Group to scale back on their motorsports efforts, including suspending the Works Program in the GTE Class of the FIA World Endurance Championship. However, I believe that they will recover economically in time, but their reputation will be tarnished for years to come, making their economic recovery all the more difficult.
ReplyDeleteFor the consumers, the issue of whether or not to continue to use their TDI VWs is more of an ethical than economical one right now. At this point in time the negative effects of the TDI emission issue (high level of nitrus oxide in emissions) does not significantly effect the consumer, meaning the cost it imposes is an externality. As the cost of the emission problem of the TDIs do not directly affect the consumer, from a purely economic point of view consumers will continue to consume (use their cars) at the level they intended to and will pass on all external costs to society. From an economic point of view, consumers would only change their consumption (usage) habits if the government imposed a tax or toll on their activity. Without such an intervention consumers aren't incentivized to sell back their cars the way you described towards the end of your post.
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