I suppose we can all look forward to a whole new set of marketing calls -have you been missold TDI ?

As it seems that EU and UK politicians (among others) were (allegedly) aware of all this it shows the hypocrisy at both political and business level in exploiting "green" concerns. I always take the attitude that most businesses who promote their green credentials are shysters and this scandal supports my prejudice. IMO he Germans promote a green political agenda via their EU power to benefit German manufactures - eg wind turbine makers and I guess via this scandal? So lets have a few politicians as well as VW employees facing the music (it ain't going to happen).

Whereas we have a government that pre-2010 were promoting themselves as the greenest ever. While in partnership with the LimpDems, they were restrained from ditching their superficial environmental credentials entirely.

Since May, they have had no such restrictions and have gone balls-out to show just what they really think of the environment. This is epitomised by that economic illiterate Osborne's decision in July to tax cleaan power stations at the same rate as dirty ones. That decision led to DRAX losing 1/3 of its value and the cvompany announcing that it was withdrawing from developing Carbon Capture & Sequestration technologies.

Green tories my 'arris

Meanwhile back in the good ol' US of States, GM have announced the specs for the 2016 Chevrolet Silverado, the country's second best selling pick up truck. You can either have it with a modest 6 litre Vortec V8 or a slightly bigger 6.6 litre Duramax V8 turbo diesel.

They are ALL cheating the regulations. As is usual with high-profile cases involving the state vs a major international corporation - the alleged infringement is insignificant next to the politics surrounding it.

No different to the EU's incessant targeting of IT companies such as Microsoft and Google.

No one seriously believes the EU is motivated primarily by the customer's interests. It's all politics.

Pick up trucks rule in the USA. They could run on uranium and spew weapons grade plutonium from the exhaust and it would be legal.

The latest ford focus runs with 5 times the maximum NOx, compare that with the shady VW golf (2013 flavour) which was only 4 times more, the golf also achieved much closer to its stated mpg http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34425306 As above, they're all at it, just that one got caught and will of course be made to pay big time whilst the others will get off relatively Scot-free if punished at all. It's all massive red herring with regard to pollution anyway, getting people out of cars and walking/cycling more with less use of motorvehicles should be the goal.

The latest ford focus runs with 5 times the maximum NOx, compare that with the shady VW golf (2013 flavour) which was only 4 times more, the golf also achieved much closer to its stated mpg http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34425306 As above, they're all at it, just that one got caught and will of course be made to pay big time whilst the others will get off relatively Scot-free if punished at all. It's all massive red herring with regard to pollution anyway, getting people out of cars and walking/cycling more with less use of motorvehicles should be the goal.

knockersbumpMKII wrote:It's all massive red herring with regard to pollution anyway, getting people out of cars and walking/cycling more with less use of motorvehicles should be the goal. Vehicle usage is largely irrelevant compared to veganism vs meat eating http://freakonomics.com/2011/11/16/agno ... -not-cows/ and that's without factoring in extra calories to be consumed if replacing motorised transport with physical effort.

knockersbumpMKII wrote:It's all massive red herring with regard to pollution anyway, getting people out of cars and walking/cycling more with less use of motorvehicles should be the goal. Vehicle usage is largely irrelevant compared to veganism vs meat eating http://freakonomics.com/2011/11/16/agno ... -not-cows/ and that's without factoring in extra calories to be consumed if replacing motorised transport with physical effort.

Indeed. If only the population of Ludhiana would switch to nut cutlets, the place would be like a forest glade

Quite apart from all the hysteria, finger pointing and basically "throwing a dead cat on the table", surrounding the VW revelations, is the stupidity in expecting engine emissions recorded on-test to be replicated in "real-world" driving conditions.

When an engine is submitted for Type Approval emissions testing, it is tested on an engine dynamometer, programmed to replicate different drive cycles. The test is a multi-thousand stage programme and although different stages are included for different vehicle types (passenger car, commercial vehicle, bus etc), it is common and standard across different engine manufacturers. It is not there to show what actually comes from the tailpipe in "real world" application, it's there to provide a minimum standard to achieve and also to make comparisons, so that consumers can make a more informed choice.

The problem with "real world" testing is that one "real world" is never the same as another.

This whole charade is based around comparing apples with oranges