Speaker 1: Get in technic technology with tech Stuff from Half Stuff.
Speaker 1: Hey there everybody, and welcome to Tech Stuff. I am
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland and joining me once again half of the
Speaker 1: Amazing Car Stuff team. Scott, Benjamin, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: How do everybody? Scott, It's great to have you here.
Speaker 1: We just finished recording a show. I think these are
Speaker 1: actually gonna play out of sequence. But I just finished
Speaker 1: recording a show with your co host Ben Bolan, who
Speaker 1: was spectacular, So I I expect you will do no
Speaker 1: less in this episode. The pressure is on. But unlike
Speaker 1: Ben's Ben, Ben didn't have to prepare anything. I specifically
Speaker 1: told him not to prepare, whereas you, uh, fortunately have
Speaker 1: talked a lot about this particular topic. We are going
Speaker 1: to talk about the Volkswagen scandal. What happened, uh, what
Speaker 1: the actual technical details are. Maybe get some information about
Speaker 1: diesel versus gasoline cars, you know, kind of get an
Speaker 1: understanding of what exactly happened and what will what what
Speaker 1: the fallout is looking like so far? And spoiler alert, folks,
Speaker 1: this is an ongoing story. It's not like we have
Speaker 1: an end where we can say, and then they were
Speaker 1: charged this much money and find no exactly, because even
Speaker 1: now with the fixed information that we we now have
Speaker 1: that we just got a few days ago, there are
Speaker 1: still some unanswered questions in this in this fixed plan,
Speaker 1: they say they've got the plan, but they're not quite
Speaker 1: exactly telling us what they're going to do with it.
Speaker 1: And only that, but they've also recently announced a a
Speaker 1: different emissions possible subterfuge trick thing that's going to be
Speaker 1: in the two thousands, or was supposed to be in
Speaker 1: the two thousand and sixteen models, which currently are not
Speaker 1: available here in the United States. They're quarantined at US ports.
Speaker 1: Right there's a hold on all sales of Volkswagen diesel
Speaker 1: vehicles from and some yours are being held back. You
Speaker 1: can't get one right now exactly. And I'll talk about
Speaker 1: what that particular possibly shady technology does. But before we
Speaker 1: get into that, one of the things I wanted to
Speaker 1: do is kind of lay the groundwork. I usually take
Speaker 1: the first part of any episode to kind of talk
Speaker 1: about what what were the conditions that led up to
Speaker 1: this point, and really to look at this one. I
Speaker 1: wanted to go way way way back, all right, because
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about the conditions that led up
Speaker 1: to things like the Clean Air Act. So in order
Speaker 1: to do that, you have to look at the dependence
Speaker 1: upon the internal combustion engine as the primary means of
Speaker 1: powering vehicles. Now, Scott, I know you are very well
Speaker 1: aware that electric vehicles proceeded internal combustion vehicles. Their electric
Speaker 1: cars were around before we had and internal combustion cars. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: they were in fact very prevalent. I mean taxi taxi
Speaker 1: companies operated on all electric platforms at a certain point
Speaker 1: in history. You can look at photographs of New York
Speaker 1: and I don't know, we're talking to turn of the
Speaker 1: century stuff, the turn of the twentieth century, where you know,
Speaker 1: it's all every car that you see in the shot
Speaker 1: is all electric. Um. Yeah, there was a point when
Speaker 1: there were far more electric vehicles on the road than
Speaker 1: there were gasoline vehicles. And they were efficient, they were fast.
Speaker 1: One thing they were not was they didn't have incredibly
Speaker 1: long driving ranges. But at first that didn't really matter.
Speaker 1: And the reason it didn't matter is because with the
Speaker 1: development of the automobile also came the development of the
Speaker 1: road system in the United States. So here in the US,
Speaker 1: at least, the place you were most likely to encounter
Speaker 1: roads that were suitable for driving on were in cities,
Speaker 1: which meant that your driving range didn't have to be
Speaker 1: that far. You weren't doing miles and miles of driving
Speaker 1: every single day. You might be doing a few miles
Speaker 1: of driving, which was important for electric vehicles because there
Speaker 1: was no real way to recharge once you hit the road. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, they had the uh, the the original idea.
Speaker 1: I guess you know where Tesla is getting his battery
Speaker 1: swap idea from. I'm sorry, Mosco. I guess I always
Speaker 1: refer to him as Tesla, but that's not correct. Of course,
Speaker 1: I'm sure he would love that. Actually, well, the Tesla,
Speaker 1: the Tesla models that are proposing that, you know, they'll
Speaker 1: be these battery swap situations where you can drive up
Speaker 1: and leave your old battery, pick up a brand new one.
Speaker 1: So that's a quick change, a relative quick change, and
Speaker 1: then you're on your way and you have to return
Speaker 1: for that battery. Uh you know, it's like a rental almost,
Speaker 1: you have to come back and get it. But uh,
Speaker 1: that idea is nothing brand new. Of course, these these
Speaker 1: old taxis that I'm talking about would drive into a
Speaker 1: station and they would swap the batteries and they're back
Speaker 1: out on the road to collect the next fair. It
Speaker 1: had as little downtime as possible. Yeah, and they ran
Speaker 1: constantly around the clock, but you know they were constantly
Speaker 1: getting new batteries as well. Right. And if you look
Speaker 1: at the development of the roads. Once we got to
Speaker 1: a point where roads were being built out beyond the cities,
Speaker 1: where they were connecting different cities together, a lot of
Speaker 1: people had the desire to travel those roads. The roads
Speaker 1: were there by necessity, but now people are like, I
Speaker 1: have an opportunity to go places I couldn't go before.
Speaker 1: But the problem was the electric vehicles weren't the vehicles
Speaker 1: that could get them there, because if it was further
Speaker 1: away than say eighteen miles, you weren't going to reach
Speaker 1: your destination. So the internal combustion engine had an advantage
Speaker 1: over that, and that you could have fueling stations along
Speaker 1: the way. And the other huge advantage was because Henry
Speaker 1: Ford figured out how to do mass production, and through
Speaker 1: mass production they were able to dramatically reduce the price
Speaker 1: of a vehicle. So a an internal combustion engine car
Speaker 1: cost about a third of what an electric vehicle did.
Speaker 1: So you have this mass adoption of the internal combustion engine. Now,
Speaker 1: this is why, the reason why I even lay that
Speaker 1: groundwork is as the United States in particular becomes a
Speaker 1: car culture, and as more and more people start driving
Speaker 1: vehicles that use internal combustion, you have more and more
Speaker 1: emissions from those vehicles, and it begins to accumulate over time.
Speaker 1: And depending upon the type of fuel you're using, if
Speaker 1: it's diesel, you get a lot of emissions that contribute
Speaker 1: to smog. And then we start seeing super smoggy cities
Speaker 1: in different parts of the country. And by the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties and nineteen sixties, you had people concerned about the
Speaker 1: quality of air. True, and the cities are inherently bad
Speaker 1: about this because they containe, they capture all this, they
Speaker 1: get it all in place. And not only that, but
Speaker 1: you've also got some cities that geographically kind of hold
Speaker 1: on to that material it's expelled from these vehicles. Los
Speaker 1: Angeles is the classic example here in the United States.
Speaker 1: Exactly right. You can look at some old photographs of
Speaker 1: smog in Los Angeles and you can't see buildings. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's like a heavy, heavy fog that hung over
Speaker 1: the city and it eventually blow away. It would it
Speaker 1: would go away, but um you know, not long you know,
Speaker 1: not long after it blows out of there, it would
Speaker 1: come right back again because there are so many vehicles
Speaker 1: that were emitting so many um uh you know, bad
Speaker 1: things for the environment. But the noxious gases, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: stuff that was bad for the environment. It could cause
Speaker 1: health issues if if it was really like if it's
Speaker 1: a really smoggy day to this day, in certain cities,
Speaker 1: when it's really smoggy, you will hear warnings on the news,
Speaker 1: like limit your amount of time outdoors, especially on hot
Speaker 1: days where it can be aggravated, because it can end
Speaker 1: up either causing or aggravating health issues. Sure, and you
Speaker 1: can see examples of this in China today, really really heavy.
Speaker 1: I mean they're there's still um and in parts of
Speaker 1: Europe too, you know, exactly right, Yeah, there's you can
Speaker 1: look at modern day Beijing and see what you know,
Speaker 1: Los Angeles look like several decades ago here in the States, right, So,
Speaker 1: by the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, different regions in
Speaker 1: the US, we're looking at ways of improving air quality
Speaker 1: and limiting pollution. And it was really patchwork, you know,
Speaker 1: for a long time until about nineteen sixties seven. That's
Speaker 1: when the US Congress passed the Air Quality Act. Now
Speaker 1: this was the predecessor to the Clean Air Act. The
Speaker 1: Air Quality Act had a disadvantage in that it was
Speaker 1: meant to have kind of a centralized organization headed by
Speaker 1: the Secretary Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to designate
Speaker 1: air quality regions around the United States, and then the
Speaker 1: states that those air quality regions were within were supposed
Speaker 1: to come up with a plan for pollution control. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, the federal government was saying, here are
Speaker 1: the areas we have to be worried about, all right, Georgia, California, Texas.
Speaker 1: You guys take care of those places. And this lack
Speaker 1: of a cohesive approach meant that it was pretty much
Speaker 1: doomed to not meet its its goals. And in fact,
Speaker 1: after three years by they had fewer than thirty six
Speaker 1: regions defined, less than three dozen of the had had
Speaker 1: been defined at all, and no state had any sort
Speaker 1: of pollution control uh comprehensive plan. And so the solution
Speaker 1: then was to bring it all under the control of
Speaker 1: the U. S. Congress. Right, Yes, that was when the
Speaker 1: Congress ray convened and started to say, all right, well,
Speaker 1: this this plan was noble in its intention. We wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure we weren't imposing the federal will on
Speaker 1: the states. But it's not working. So that's where the
Speaker 1: Clean Air Act to tie all this together so that
Speaker 1: you understand what's happening at that particular time. This is
Speaker 1: this is well, well, you know, the I guess the
Speaker 1: term that we're gonna throw around here a little bit
Speaker 1: today maybe as the cafe standards and cafe standards were
Speaker 1: enacted somewhere around nineteen seventy five, I think the regulations.
Speaker 1: These are set of regulations that were enacted by Congress,
Speaker 1: and nineteen seventy five, you're you're talking about like the
Speaker 1: tail end of the arab oil embargo, so that you
Speaker 1: know the fuel crisis. You know where um you see
Speaker 1: the lines of people and you know the no gas
Speaker 1: today rationing and all the rad with the odd even
Speaker 1: system and all that. Um, that is that's the environment
Speaker 1: that we're talking about. Yeah, so this was, um, you know,
Speaker 1: this was a serious situation for multiple reasons. Also in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy that's when uh, you know, you had the
Speaker 1: introduction of Earth Day. So you had this growing support
Speaker 1: for a conservation and UH and and concern about the environment. Uh.
Speaker 1: In at the same time where you have things like
Speaker 1: the oil crisis. I mean, all this stuff is coming
Speaker 1: to a head. So it's all fueling this. And we were, well,
Speaker 1: we were starting to understand the effects on the human body. Yes,
Speaker 1: just just exactly what that that smog was doing to
Speaker 1: people that are walking around in the next cloud of
Speaker 1: of you know, just awful stuff X in there and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, it's weird. We're seeing a lot more people
Speaker 1: with asthma these days that kind of stuff, or or
Speaker 1: bronchitis or things of that. People are dying of respiratory illness.
Speaker 1: We can't quite put our finger on exactly what's causing it,
Speaker 1: but it's happening frequently and and and even if you
Speaker 1: were to argue that the pollution may not cause it,
Speaker 1: it's certainly exacerbated it. So UH. This ended up creating
Speaker 1: the Cleaner Act, which set the national standards for pollution
Speaker 1: emissions eventually and created a timeline for it, which had
Speaker 1: to be adjusted multiple times because, as it turned out,
Speaker 1: the standards were uh the standards to make the engines
Speaker 1: operate in what had been determined to be a safe
Speaker 1: uh set of parameters meant that manufacturers couldn't find a
Speaker 1: way to meet that and also make a car that worked.
Speaker 1: So so those those um, those goals kept getting pushed.
Speaker 1: There was there were uh they they started to look
Speaker 1: at pushing the deadline back in seven. They pushed it
Speaker 1: back again in um mainly because the technology to create
Speaker 1: something that was able to operate under these standards and
Speaker 1: do its job was not really an achievable goal for
Speaker 1: something that wouldn't cost an astronomical amount of money. And
Speaker 1: you know, one thing that I don't think we've even
Speaker 1: mentioned yet is we say cafe standards that means corporate
Speaker 1: average fuel economy, and that's across the line of vehicles,
Speaker 1: across the whole fleet of vehicles. It's not like one
Speaker 1: particular vehicle has to meet the standard. It has to
Speaker 1: be an average of all vehicles produced. And I know
Speaker 1: there's other there's other stuff that goes into this. There's
Speaker 1: there's this big Vinn diagram that makes this all work.
Speaker 1: But um, the standards are very very uh tough to meet.
Speaker 1: I mean they're they're they're a strict set of set
Speaker 1: of standards that especially the latest round which was UM
Speaker 1: announced and I think it was two thousand eight, all
Speaker 1: the way through the model year, and when manufacturers see
Speaker 1: the list of what they have to meet, the goals
Speaker 1: that they have to meet in order to be in
Speaker 1: compliance with this agreement, to sign this agreement and say, yeah,
Speaker 1: we agree to sell vehicles in the United States, we
Speaker 1: have to meet these goals. Uh. It is a steep
Speaker 1: set of standards. And I find it interesting that looking
Speaker 1: back now, you know the agreement, the initial agreement in
Speaker 1: two thousand eight, UM all those it was very stringent,
Speaker 1: very very tough. UM major auto manufacturer signed that agreement.
Speaker 1: You know, a bit begrudgingly. You know that they say, well, okay,
Speaker 1: we can probably meet these but there's a lot of
Speaker 1: back and forth. Volkswagen and Mercedes Benz had the biggest
Speaker 1: objection to it. And I don't know if Volkswagen ever
Speaker 1: signed that agreement. I I don't know how. I've been
Speaker 1: looking all day trying to find out if they actually
Speaker 1: signed the agreement, but I can only find information that
Speaker 1: goes back into two two th eight where they say
Speaker 1: Volkswagen has as of now not signed this agree. Interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one of those things where you can't find any definitive
Speaker 1: update about whether they did or did not sign. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the reason was they said that it's UM and
Speaker 1: i'll just paraphrase this is because they said that UM
Speaker 1: it places an unfair, unfairly high burden on passenger cars
Speaker 1: well allowing a greater flexibility to let's say, a heavier
Speaker 1: light truck. So we're saying it's not exactly the way
Speaker 1: that we'd like to see it happen, and it's penalizing
Speaker 1: in all things, penalizing people that make UM passenger vehicles
Speaker 1: with diesel engines. It's not fair to them. Its white
Speaker 1: Mercedes and Volkswagen said, I don't know about this agreement.
Speaker 1: I don't think we're gonna sign it, and I will
Speaker 1: still dig into that and see if they actually ever did.
Speaker 1: But around two eight that was kind of the talk
Speaker 1: around the circles was why is not why is b
Speaker 1: W NET signing this? And you know it's we'll get
Speaker 1: more into the diesel stuff in a minute to explain,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the issues that manufacturers run into,
Speaker 1: like the scandal is pretty awful. That being said, I
Speaker 1: also have at least some sympathy for the difficulty that
Speaker 1: engineers face to make things that are satisfying to drive,
Speaker 1: that operate within the the fuel economy and efficiency that
Speaker 1: is dictated by the government, as well as work within
Speaker 1: the emission standards. Okay, you just said the magic three. There,
Speaker 1: that's the three things. It's it's fuel economy, performance and
Speaker 1: emissions and you can it's have you ever heard the
Speaker 1: phrase you can have it done quickly, you can have
Speaker 1: it done well, or you could have it done cheaply.
Speaker 1: You can pick two out of the three. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're never going to find all three. R Well,
Speaker 1: somehow folks I can manage to do all three with
Speaker 1: their diesel engines back in two thousand. Oh wow, it
Speaker 1: was magical too, as it turns out. But before we
Speaker 1: jump ahead to that a little bit more just to
Speaker 1: kind of cover our bases, uh, The Environmental Protection Agency
Speaker 1: has given been given a lot of control as well
Speaker 1: when it comes to the emission standards. They were able
Speaker 1: to establish the National Ambient Air Quality Standards or in
Speaker 1: a a q S. The next I gotta say, that's
Speaker 1: a new one to me. Yeah, that's the one that
Speaker 1: where the deadline had been extended a couple of times,
Speaker 1: Like where where it was clear the states could not
Speaker 1: meet that deadline. So I mean, what do you do, Like,
Speaker 1: do you what's the well? I guess what's the fine?
Speaker 1: And how do you define how much each place pays?
Speaker 1: I mean based on what the offense is. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: measure that again. And you know, because pollution also doesn't
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily obeyed geography. You could have pollution that is
Speaker 1: produced in one place, but it's another place that's dealing
Speaker 1: with it. Uh. And and in states where you have
Speaker 1: big cities that are close to the border, it maybe
Speaker 1: that one city is actually producing the pollution, but the
Speaker 1: other city is the one that's really suffering from it.
Speaker 1: Dumping into rivers is a great example. Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: stuff like that where it flows downstream, Yeah, exactly, or
Speaker 1: trucked into a different region. Just simple air patterns exactly.
Speaker 1: You know, weather patterns can push it. So, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: they they pushed the deadlines a couple of times. It
Speaker 1: made me think of like if you're if you're a
Speaker 1: parent of a kid and you say I need you
Speaker 1: to pick up all these toys before five o'clock and
Speaker 1: you're coming there and it's all the toys aren't picked up,
Speaker 1: and you're thinking, well, all right, you need to pick
Speaker 1: up all these toys before six o'clock because you're like,
Speaker 1: I don't really want to punish you, but I really
Speaker 1: do want you to pick up these toys where it's done.
Speaker 1: But they've just thrown them in their brother's closet. Yeah, see,
Speaker 1: pushing it down the road. Yeah, for me, it was
Speaker 1: it was all just shoving it into the closet like
Speaker 1: that's that. If it's out of sight, that means it's clean. Um.
Speaker 1: So one of the things about the Clean Air Act
Speaker 1: is that it it did have standards for what kinds
Speaker 1: of emissions and how much how many you know, types
Speaker 1: of emissions could be created by a car carbon dioxide
Speaker 1: by the way, non that list carbon dioxide, didn't. You know?
Speaker 1: That's the greenhouse gas, and it's something that we're concerned about,
Speaker 1: but not on the list of the emissions that the
Speaker 1: Clean Air Act was concerned with. Instead, it was things
Speaker 1: like carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and hydrocarbon emissions greenhouse gasses. Yeah,
Speaker 1: except for carbon dioxide. That was the only one that
Speaker 1: was kind of left out, But yeah, these are all
Speaker 1: greenhouse gases. Yeah, and and diesel in particular is pretty
Speaker 1: bad about um nitrogen oxides, and that's the kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that contributes to smog uh formation. Yeah. You often
Speaker 1: see it written is like n O X yes, and
Speaker 1: of people yep. Yeah, hard knocks in that case. Uh
Speaker 1: So the standards of the emission centers themselves. When I
Speaker 1: say standard, it sounds like I could easily quote you.
Speaker 1: You know, here's how much uh nitrogen ox side the
Speaker 1: car is allowed to emit over a given amount of time.
Speaker 1: Not that simple. It all depends on the type of vehicle,
Speaker 1: like you were saying, between light trucks and passenger cars
Speaker 1: for example, or the age of the vehicle that that
Speaker 1: plays a factor as well. Um so, and also whether
Speaker 1: it's a gasoline powered vehicle or a diesel powered vehicle,
Speaker 1: because the emissions will be different depending upon those. So
Speaker 1: it's a little complicated, and I'm not going to be,
Speaker 1: you know, spouting off specific numbers because it's just not
Speaker 1: there's no point to it. A different podcast. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's the that's the the incredibly tiny standards podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna get down to that. But to go to sleep,
Speaker 1: yes the evening, and I don't mind if you guys
Speaker 1: fall asleep to me. I don't do the listener mail
Speaker 1: thing anymore. So at least you're not gonna be woken
Speaker 1: up by a clackson. Um. So, like we said, the performance,
Speaker 1: the energy efficiency or fuel efficiency, I should say, and
Speaker 1: the emissions are these three things, and it is very
Speaker 1: hard to meet the expectations of all three of those
Speaker 1: at the same time because um As it turns out,
Speaker 1: a lot of the emissions control mechanisms have an effect
Speaker 1: on performance. Um they have an effect on and they
Speaker 1: can have an effect on fuel efficiency. For example, it's
Speaker 1: correlation is kind of a weird word, but there is
Speaker 1: an association between a very fuel efficient diesel engine and
Speaker 1: high production of nitrogen oxide. So you if you're an
Speaker 1: auto manufacturer, you have to make an engine to make
Speaker 1: your cargo, and you're using you know, you want it
Speaker 1: to be a diesel powered engine. You have specific standards
Speaker 1: you have to meet for fuel efficiency, that's one of
Speaker 1: the things you've got to you know, you one of
Speaker 1: the boxes you have to check off. But you also
Speaker 1: have standards you have to meet for emissions. That's the
Speaker 1: other box you've got to check off. And in this relationship,
Speaker 1: as one goes up, the other goes down. In a
Speaker 1: in the bad way, right, Like, as as one improves,
Speaker 1: the other one is getting worse. So how do you
Speaker 1: balance that out? Plus make sure that the car performs
Speaker 1: in such a way that it's not just drivable that
Speaker 1: people want to drive, that a consumer would actually want
Speaker 1: to drive that vehicle. Because when you start playing around
Speaker 1: with these three things that you've mentioned, Um, I'll argue
Speaker 1: that consumers are and I know that this is I
Speaker 1: guess maybe controversial, and that you know, some people say, no,
Speaker 1: that's what I care about most. It's always gonna be
Speaker 1: someone like that. But um, I would say that most
Speaker 1: people care less about the actual emissions of the vehicle
Speaker 1: than they do about the fuel economy and the way
Speaker 1: that the car performs. Are fuels and drive right, because
Speaker 1: the fuel efficiency is going to impact your wallet, right,
Speaker 1: you know, it's how much fuel you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: buy to get your car to go from place to place,
Speaker 1: and performance obviously the way the car feels emissions. I
Speaker 1: would argue for most people, they want the emissions to
Speaker 1: be at a level that is acceptable for the region
Speaker 1: their end. Well what I mean by that, and I
Speaker 1: don't I don't mean to you know, spark any kind
Speaker 1: of big controversy or anything. But what I'm saying is
Speaker 1: that when you buy a new vehicle off the lot,
Speaker 1: you assume that it's going to be compliant with current
Speaker 1: CAFE or not cafe, but rather emission standards in that
Speaker 1: area and in the U S in general. It's going
Speaker 1: to pass. It's going to be a clean vehicle, and
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be sold as a new car otherwise it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be allowed to Well no, but I mean you
Speaker 1: pick up a you know, and seven year old used car,
Speaker 1: you take it in for the emissions test, you know,
Speaker 1: as most people have to do now around big cities
Speaker 1: at least um, you know, yearly before you get the
Speaker 1: renewal of your tags or whatever. Um, there's always that
Speaker 1: chance that they're gonna say, sorry, you're just over on
Speaker 1: on this and UM here's the recommended fix. You've got
Speaker 1: thirty days to make that fix. Otherwise you're not allowed
Speaker 1: to drive this vehicle on Georgia Highways Georgia Rhodes and
Speaker 1: UH and and you know, I think there's limits to
Speaker 1: that too. You know, you can spend a certain dollar
Speaker 1: amount on the fixes that I think you're limited, like,
Speaker 1: you don't have to spend ten thousand dollars to get
Speaker 1: your car client with whatever. But but you might have
Speaker 1: to spend you know, a minimum or a maximum rather
Speaker 1: of three dollars or whatever it happens to be. I
Speaker 1: don't know the number, but they don't want you to
Speaker 1: go crazy, you know, to have to make to make
Speaker 1: the car twice as expensive as I find it's all
Speaker 1: very funny. I find the whole emissions game kind of funny.
Speaker 1: But yeah, because it's it's a balance between what is
Speaker 1: supposed to be environmentally responsible, what is supposed to cause
Speaker 1: the least amount of harmful effect on other people, but
Speaker 1: also not supposed to break the bank. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: but but you see what I mean though, And I
Speaker 1: find this funny and we can talk about this maybe
Speaker 1: in another podcast. I don't know, it seems to fit
Speaker 1: here a little bit. But it's funny that if the
Speaker 1: car doesn't pass, they say, well, you can spend three
Speaker 1: dollars on it, and if it doesn't pass again, we'll
Speaker 1: just kind of give you okay for this year. It's
Speaker 1: like we're we're accepting that, you know, it's still not
Speaker 1: compliant with our with our rules and regulations. And then
Speaker 1: also your car can age out of this, so that
Speaker 1: after ten years or fifteen years or whatever happens to me,
Speaker 1: I think it's ten you don't have to have a
Speaker 1: car emissions tested anymore to get your tags. And that
Speaker 1: seems kind of stillyed me too, because at that point,
Speaker 1: most of that stuff on your car is where and
Speaker 1: out to the point where it's going to probably not
Speaker 1: pass anyways. Right, the emissions are gonna be all right,
Speaker 1: it's going to be beyond the emission standard. And those
Speaker 1: are the heavy polluters, those are the ones that you know,
Speaker 1: do admit more. So maybe they're thinking at that point
Speaker 1: that you're not driving it as heavily as I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm I really when I look at this
Speaker 1: from several different angles, the emissions testing thing, it's really confusing. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, and when we get into the Volkswagen stuff
Speaker 1: in particular, it gets a little confusing because ultimately you
Speaker 1: hear the news from the government saying, all right, if
Speaker 1: you own Volkswagen, don't worry, you're not we're not going
Speaker 1: to penalize you for that because it's not your fault.
Speaker 1: So you're like, well, but it's still producing the pollution.
Speaker 1: Let's say that I'll say I drove a Fiat from
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm gonna make this up ten years
Speaker 1: ago or seven years ago, So it still has to
Speaker 1: be emissions compliant. If that car doesn't pass, like I
Speaker 1: just said, if it doesn't pass emissions, you have thirty
Speaker 1: days to make the fixes. Otherwise you're not legally allowed
Speaker 1: to drive that car. So they're saying, we're giving all
Speaker 1: these Volkswagen vehicles that are on the road right now,
Speaker 1: we that we know will pass the test, but they're
Speaker 1: passing it. They're cheating, they're cheating, but we know that
Speaker 1: they're not compliant, but we're allowing you the time until
Speaker 1: Volkswagen comes back with a fix. So there's going to
Speaker 1: be like this year or two years maybe where they
Speaker 1: know what's happening. And again another confusing angle in this
Speaker 1: whole thing. Yeah, because you know, it's like they're giving
Speaker 1: a free pass. Yeah. And and I have some sympathy
Speaker 1: for the for the government side of this, because how
Speaker 1: do you deal with this otherwise do you just tell
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't go and confiscate everyone's vehicle. You
Speaker 1: can't take the keys from everybody's car and say this
Speaker 1: is part until b W comes up with fix. Congratulations,
Speaker 1: you've spent all that money on something that you can't use. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's a complicated situation, all right. We
Speaker 1: we talked about emissions. How do cars control emissions in
Speaker 1: the first place, where the systems in a car, specifically
Speaker 1: diesel engine car that are are designed in order to
Speaker 1: reduce emissions of this nitrogen nitrogen oxide in particular, but
Speaker 1: other stuff as well. And there are lots of things,
Speaker 1: um that are part of this. Uh, there's their combustion
Speaker 1: chambers that have been designed so that they can process
Speaker 1: the fuel better before it gets released or burn it
Speaker 1: off in a way where you're not gonna have nitrogen
Speaker 1: oxide anymore as complete it burn as possible. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: are some that are designed to use catalysts that will
Speaker 1: make the nitrogen oxide break apart so as you get
Speaker 1: nitrogen and oxygen, which that's there's no problem. There are
Speaker 1: Our atmosphere is primarily nitrogen. Sure, and you're talking right now,
Speaker 1: you're talking about after after it's gone through combustions, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are some that are in the combustion phase too,
Speaker 1: like just the combustion chamber and fuel systems. Uh, lube
Speaker 1: oil consumption can have an effect to if you if
Speaker 1: you design your car so that it's much more efficient
Speaker 1: with that or your engine, I should say, if it's
Speaker 1: much more efficient than that. But there's also like particulate
Speaker 1: filters on the on the end of it, Um, the
Speaker 1: catalysts which can break up the nitrogen oxide into nitrogen
Speaker 1: and oxygen. Are you talking about the the urea injection
Speaker 1: systems which further burns the soot and so did the
Speaker 1: particular filters those are those are kind of neat. Particular
Speaker 1: filters are interesting to maybe because um, when I was
Speaker 1: with Chrysler doing U technical training for you know, the
Speaker 1: service people, um, the technicians there rather, UM, we were
Speaker 1: talking about Dodge Ram pickup trucks that had a diesel
Speaker 1: particular filter that would regenerate itself. So some of these
Speaker 1: are single use where they fill up and one of
Speaker 1: the byproducts of burning diesel fuel is soot. You get
Speaker 1: a lot, there's a lot of soot that's left over,
Speaker 1: and it's almost like an like an ash type product.
Speaker 1: And you don't see ash really coming out of the
Speaker 1: tailpipe of of diesel powered vehicles. So where does it
Speaker 1: all go? Well, goes to these big filters and they're
Speaker 1: called particular filters as you said, and the single use
Speaker 1: ones that's pretty simple. I mean, the idea is that
Speaker 1: it just fills up and eventually if you get it
Speaker 1: emptied or replaced, kind of like a filter on a
Speaker 1: on a like an air conditioning system. That's relatively rare
Speaker 1: now I mean relatively there's still out there. But the
Speaker 1: ones that really you're interesting to me. And oh the
Speaker 1: other the other version of this would be the urea injection,
Speaker 1: which further burned allows it to be further burned. Um,
Speaker 1: and you have to refill that system every let's say,
Speaker 1: every ten thousand miles or I think every five thousand miles,
Speaker 1: and that's part of the fix will talk about. But um,
Speaker 1: the regenerative ones. These things heat up to something like,
Speaker 1: you know, six hundred degrees celsius or twelve hundred degrees celsius.
Speaker 1: It gets really really hot, and it's it's hot enough
Speaker 1: to burn soot. And when it happens is very interesting.
Speaker 1: It happens on the highway when you're driving, because I mean,
Speaker 1: imagine something underneath your vehicle that heats up to the
Speaker 1: point where it's twelve hundred degrees Celsius's pretty If you
Speaker 1: were parked on you know, grass like dry grass somewhere,
Speaker 1: it would ignite the grass below. Parked on an asphalt,
Speaker 1: you would melt it. If you're standing next to it,
Speaker 1: I mean it would it would burn your leg. And
Speaker 1: it's a it's a hot, hot thing. I mean that's
Speaker 1: it's twice the temperature of a of a pizza oven. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's really really hot. And it was interesting to
Speaker 1: see how they developed a way to to decide exactly
Speaker 1: when it happens. And it's all electronically controlled. It's all
Speaker 1: very precise in the way they do it. And it
Speaker 1: has to be, obviously because if it if it weren't,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be safe for anybody you put in your garage.
Speaker 1: And if it's still doing this regenerative thing, your house
Speaker 1: is up in flames. Yeah, it's something we generally considered
Speaker 1: to be a bad thing. Yeah, that would be. So
Speaker 1: they had to be very careful about how they designed it,
Speaker 1: but also very precise. And that's and that shows you
Speaker 1: how um carefully they can decide when things happen electronically
Speaker 1: in your car. So just one example, I guess. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so the the These systems are obviously the things
Speaker 1: that allow a diesel well really any any engine for cars,
Speaker 1: but we're specifically focused on diesel. These are the sort
Speaker 1: of things that allow diesel engines to operate within those
Speaker 1: emission standard parameters. But they do have an effect on
Speaker 1: fuel efficiency and on and really on performance. And so
Speaker 1: here's where we get into what Volkswagen did and where
Speaker 1: the scandal comes in. So you've mentioned emission testing. That's
Speaker 1: something that if you are living in certain cities you
Speaker 1: have to go through before you can go and get
Speaker 1: your tags renewed for the next year. I remember growing
Speaker 1: up in rural Georgia that was not a thing. I
Speaker 1: didn't know anything about it until I moved here to
Speaker 1: Atlanta and I saw these kind of tent like structures
Speaker 1: outside of usually you know, like a like a mechanics
Speaker 1: or something you see and say emission testing bucks or
Speaker 1: whatever it is, and I kept thinking like, well, what's
Speaker 1: that for. And it wasn't until we didn't own a
Speaker 1: car at first, to me and my wife, and when
Speaker 1: we finally got one and we found out like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: that makes sense because you're in a you're in a
Speaker 1: dense populated area where there are a lot of people,
Speaker 1: especially in Atlanta, which is a very car centric city,
Speaker 1: it makes sense for it to be there, but just
Speaker 1: I had never in countered it before. Gets me every time.
Speaker 1: It's your birthday because you're renewing your tags, so there's
Speaker 1: you know, a hundred bucks right there they have to
Speaker 1: pay out or whatever, and then they hit you with
Speaker 1: another twenty dollars for emissions if your car fits that
Speaker 1: certain parameter those you know, the year or whatever. You know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it all depends on like what year you bought
Speaker 1: the car, and what model it was, and and how
Speaker 1: how old is it and all that kind of stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: I always feel like I need a degree to figure
Speaker 1: out whether or not you get get the emissions testing.
Speaker 1: You know, it's even more frustrated to me. I live.
Speaker 1: I live in the extreme northern part of this county
Speaker 1: the Atlanta is in. It's an odd shaped county, so
Speaker 1: it's way way far away. It's like thirty miles away.
Speaker 1: Not I mean, not even half a mile down the
Speaker 1: road is the next county where they don't do emission
Speaker 1: They don't do emissions testing, so I'm not even anywhere
Speaker 1: near the city. But I still have to do this
Speaker 1: emissions testing in the county. Yeah, exactly. Well, uh so
Speaker 1: what was going on with the Volkswagen one was that
Speaker 1: the car quote unquote new when it was being tested,
Speaker 1: and it would turn on all the emissions controls, essentially
Speaker 1: shutting out off emissions for the effectively shutting off emissions
Speaker 1: for the duration of the test, so that during the
Speaker 1: test phase, this clean diesel engine, which is the way
Speaker 1: it was marketed as clean diesel vehicles, was remarkable. It
Speaker 1: had performance, it had it was meeting the emission standard,
Speaker 1: it had fuel economy. This was a miracle machine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and other manufacturers at the time we're kind of marveling
Speaker 1: and how Volkswagen had done it. Now, Volkswagen have been
Speaker 1: in the diesel game for a long time, so they thought, well,
Speaker 1: this is superior German engineering. They've got some kind of
Speaker 1: idea of how those works, and we just we just
Speaker 1: can't seem to get the performance angle out of this
Speaker 1: whole thing. You know, we can do the emissions, we
Speaker 1: can do the fuel economy, we can't do the performance
Speaker 1: where we can do It's that it's that old you
Speaker 1: can do you know, pick two of those things. But
Speaker 1: they were all scratching their heads like, well, how is
Speaker 1: Volkswagen doing this? And it turns out this this hear
Speaker 1: the term defeat device, and a lot of people will
Speaker 1: picture a physical device you could hold in your hands. Yeah,
Speaker 1: something something you would shove inside the exhaust pipe or something. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this term defeat device is a little bit deceptive
Speaker 1: and that it's it's really just um, it's a software
Speaker 1: code and that's all it is. It's a very cleverly
Speaker 1: written line of soft incredibly clever because you know, my
Speaker 1: first my first thought when I heard about the scandal
Speaker 1: that they had installed software that would defeat the emissions
Speaker 1: testing by by incorporating the emissions controls during the test
Speaker 1: and then turning them off afterwards. So you get that
Speaker 1: fuel efficiency and performance back, but you're emitting much more pollution.
Speaker 1: At that time, my first reaction was, I wonder if
Speaker 1: it's just when they connect the computer system like it
Speaker 1: it it uh, it detects when the computer system gets
Speaker 1: connected to it. No, it's way more subtle than that,
Speaker 1: because there are other situations where you would use that,
Speaker 1: and we knew that they knew that. You know, people
Speaker 1: have their own home diagnostic tools can plug in we're
Speaker 1: talking about the the O B D two ports, the
Speaker 1: diagnostic ports on the driver's side, and it's it's it
Speaker 1: goes far deeper than that because it takes into account
Speaker 1: the wheel speed, it takes an account the position of
Speaker 1: the steering wheel. Everything is read all you know, your
Speaker 1: your car is talking all the time to other models,
Speaker 1: are talking to other modules and figure out what's going on.
Speaker 1: And they determined that they knew exactly the the parameters
Speaker 1: that were set because these are government standards that are
Speaker 1: in place for a vehicle emissions test and they're the
Speaker 1: same everywhere. So it's very very easy to say, when
Speaker 1: this condition is met, then you do this, and when
Speaker 1: this has meant you do that, and if these two
Speaker 1: things are met, then you do this. And it's so
Speaker 1: it's so simple for them to cheat this way. I
Speaker 1: don't know why other people haven't tried this in the past.
Speaker 1: If well, maybe they have. It's possible, but this was
Speaker 1: one where where it was found out. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It's like you said, it's very simple. It's an if
Speaker 1: then right, if conditions are equivalent to a testing situation,
Speaker 1: then engage the emission controls like that. That's that's basic
Speaker 1: computer programming is the if then statement, and they obviously
Speaker 1: we're oversimplifying for the purposes of this discussion, but that's
Speaker 1: that's the basic model they followed, which is incredibly subversive
Speaker 1: and brilliant at the same time. Yeah, I mean there
Speaker 1: could I don't know how many parameters they've got here,
Speaker 1: but there could be ten different indicators that the vehicle
Speaker 1: is an emissions testing bedpoint and and then you react
Speaker 1: this way. But then once you unplug all that and
Speaker 1: you're on your way, we don't want that. We don't
Speaker 1: want it to react that way. Because the driver was saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I went in for emissions testing in the
Speaker 1: car fels like it's broken so wrong. It's not responding
Speaker 1: the way it should. I'm not getting the fuel economy
Speaker 1: that I was getting before. Why do you guys do
Speaker 1: to my car? So? Uh. One of the two thousand
Speaker 1: sixteen thing that I was mentioning before, Volkswagen has revealed
Speaker 1: that it has an emission control system that might only
Speaker 1: engage during tests. I got the feeling like this the
Speaker 1: way it's been reported, it sounds like someone who's it
Speaker 1: had been caught doing something wrong. And then when they
Speaker 1: are directly asked, hey, did you also do this like
Speaker 1: it might be well, not against the rules. It plays
Speaker 1: right into why would they build the models any different
Speaker 1: than they did because fourteens and all the way back
Speaker 1: to oh eight, because they knew what worked and they
Speaker 1: hadn't been caught at that point yet. They had already
Speaker 1: manufactured those cars. Yeah, and the two thousand sixteen one
Speaker 1: has the additional element and that it heats up a
Speaker 1: pollution control catalyst. And that's the thing that I was
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, separating out the nitrogen and oxygen,
Speaker 1: the nitrogen oxide into nitrogen and oxygen. That's what the
Speaker 1: models have. Yeah, they had installed Lean Knox traps and
Speaker 1: in certain vehicles and in other vehicles, you know, like
Speaker 1: after two thousand twelve they installed something that called the
Speaker 1: selective catalytic reduction systems and uh in you know, I
Speaker 1: guess that's the one with the liquid urea solution that
Speaker 1: was sprayed into it. So it's a it's a much
Speaker 1: more complex system than the Lean Knox traps. But um
Speaker 1: that that him self is gonna be a problem for
Speaker 1: Wagon because they have to deal with all these different
Speaker 1: vehicles in different ways. They need different things for the fix.
Speaker 1: And I can outline that later. Yeah, just a quick
Speaker 1: example if you if you look up the news that
Speaker 1: you hear that like some of the models of the
Speaker 1: facade were had twenty times the the allotted you know,
Speaker 1: the allowable amount of emissions when it was in its
Speaker 1: normal driving operation and I'm outside of the emissions test, right,
Speaker 1: And the Jetta was even worse. It could be between
Speaker 1: fifteen and thirty five times. Some of them were up
Speaker 1: to forty times the allowed amount of emissions of nitrogen oxized. Here,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna guess that those are the ones that were
Speaker 1: just the lean, the Lean Knox Traps equipped ones, because
Speaker 1: that's kind of other manufacturers were saying, how can you
Speaker 1: get these these standard? He can you meet these standards
Speaker 1: with just a Lean Knox trap It's there's just no way.
Speaker 1: We can't. We can't do it. How are you doing it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: That was the magic. Where's the lepre con inside your
Speaker 1: engine that's allowing this to happen. So here's a fun fact. Uh,
Speaker 1: did you did you run across the name of the
Speaker 1: engineer who who is credited as discovering this. He's got
Speaker 1: a perfect name, all right. So it's Volkswagen that has
Speaker 1: been called out on this. The name of the engineer
Speaker 1: U S engineer whose discovery essentially led to the unveiling
Speaker 1: of this scandal is John German. No way, yeah, really
Speaker 1: he's he's German, the engineer, but not a German engineer. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And this is a private agency, right, yeah, Actually he was. Um,
Speaker 1: so he also works not just with engineering, but he
Speaker 1: works with a uh kind of an environmental protection sort
Speaker 1: of organization. But he's not with the US government. No, No,
Speaker 1: he was not. Uh And so originally, in fact, he
Speaker 1: handed that information over to the US government. So originally
Speaker 1: what he was doing was purely he didn't suspect Volkswagen
Speaker 1: of doing anything hinky. What he was doing was he
Speaker 1: was looking at the nitrog an ox side emissions, the
Speaker 1: NOx emissions in Europe and seeing how how out of
Speaker 1: control they were in certain regions, and then looking at
Speaker 1: the data for the United States and saying, well, I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously there's a difference between the number of diesel vehicles
Speaker 1: on the road in Europe and those in the US.
Speaker 1: But he was saying, but he was saying, well, you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's something clearly happening over here in the US,
Speaker 1: like the Volkswagen cars are amazing. Uh, maybe we can
Speaker 1: look into the engineering of the Volkswagen cars and give
Speaker 1: advice to European automakers to help out Europe. So it
Speaker 1: was it was purely in an approach to help someone
Speaker 1: else out that he even started looking into this. But
Speaker 1: he's then essentially what he did was he was measuring
Speaker 1: these levels on the road as like a highway travel
Speaker 1: or city travel versus in a lab environment. Yes, he
Speaker 1: specifically started looking at how the cars were performing in
Speaker 1: various environments and discovered there were vast inconsistencies, So real
Speaker 1: world's situations versus lab situation exactly as dramatically well in
Speaker 1: this case, well extremely different in the case of Volkswagen
Speaker 1: in particular. Yes, and so at this point he's saying, huh,
Speaker 1: something is really off about this, and was tempted to
Speaker 1: even perhaps call it a defeat device at that stage,
Speaker 1: but he did not. He instead handed the data over
Speaker 1: to the e p A and as a courtesy, handed
Speaker 1: the report over to Volkswagen as well in two thousand
Speaker 1: fourteen May two thousand fourteen, so it's been more than
Speaker 1: a year since this data got to Volkswagen, and German
Speaker 1: says the reason he sent it to Volkswagen was because
Speaker 1: perhaps it was legitimate oversight, something like maybe it was
Speaker 1: a fault in part of the engineering that could be
Speaker 1: addressed and fixed, that there might be an honest mistake here.
Speaker 1: And you know, he was giving them a huge benefit
Speaker 1: of the doubt. Sure, he might even be thinking that
Speaker 1: it's in this one particular line of vehicles, maybe there's
Speaker 1: a problem with that, or maybe it's a it's very
Speaker 1: it could be very very simple for you to change this.
Speaker 1: But he had no idea that this was the tip
Speaker 1: of the iceberg. So the e p A starts looking
Speaker 1: into it, and it wasn't until September of this year
Speaker 1: that Volkswagen essentially came out and said you got us.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, yeah, you know what. I Okay, they've known
Speaker 1: about it for a while. You you do have to
Speaker 1: give them some some credit, uh, to come right out
Speaker 1: and say like, yeah, you you got us, you got
Speaker 1: us fare and square out. They they said that due
Speaker 1: to some rogue software developers, like no one has come
Speaker 1: out to the point in Volkswagen to say this was
Speaker 1: a decision like they're not willing to say this decision
Speaker 1: goes all the way to the top. Yeah, it's more
Speaker 1: like someone lowered down made this decision without our our knowledge,
Speaker 1: and that's and we're suffering for although the top guy
Speaker 1: did step down. Yes, yeah, so I mean it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's definitely affected uh, their corporate structure as well. Yes,
Speaker 1: in the last month, it'll and it will continue to
Speaker 1: affect them heavily in the oncoming months. Yeah. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is so far reaching. I mean I I sometimes sit around,
Speaker 1: like at my desk, I'm thinking about like just the
Speaker 1: the sheer volume of vehicles not only here in the
Speaker 1: United States but worldwide vehicles or so, Yeah, we have
Speaker 1: wet half a million here and it's a big deal here.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine what it's like over there, What's what
Speaker 1: they're going through over there. But I just think about
Speaker 1: like the pure logistics of this whole thing, with some
Speaker 1: of the fixes that they're proposing and all that, and
Speaker 1: the time involved and the money involved, and you know,
Speaker 1: are they you know the bigger questions are they going
Speaker 1: to come back from this? Are they gonna what's this
Speaker 1: gonna do to Diesel's reputation not only not only here
Speaker 1: but worldwide. I mean, everybody kind of bought into this.
Speaker 1: It's you know, we get listen and we get listener
Speaker 1: mail all the time from listeners in Europe that prior
Speaker 1: to this, we're saying, why aren't you guys on diesel,
Speaker 1: like we are over here in Europe, why aren't you
Speaker 1: Why aren't you doing that? And I mean it's one
Speaker 1: of those things where you look at it and you
Speaker 1: think it's a lie that we want to believe. Right,
Speaker 1: it's a venient lie because it gives us the feeling
Speaker 1: that we're not contributing to pollution and we're getting the
Speaker 1: the performance we want out of our vehicles and the
Speaker 1: fuel economy we want out of our vehicles. If you
Speaker 1: tell me that lie, I am probably inclined to believe
Speaker 1: it because it's to everyone. It seems to be to
Speaker 1: everyone's benefit until you strip away the lie and realize
Speaker 1: how much pollution is actually being dumped out there. A
Speaker 1: lot of people felt really good about driving you know,
Speaker 1: clean diesel engines. I mean, it's right there in the
Speaker 1: name clean diesel. So people felt really good about going
Speaker 1: to VW and picking up a you know, t D
Speaker 1: I equipped t D equipped vehicle and being happy about that,
Speaker 1: like I'm doing my part, yeah, Like I'm being responsible adult.
Speaker 1: I'm not getting one of those gas guzzlers that's eating
Speaker 1: up gasoline and pouring out tons of carbon monoxide out
Speaker 1: into the atmosphere. Uh yeah. And according to the Guardian,
Speaker 1: this is something you guys covered on Scott You were
Speaker 1: on an episode of Forward Thinking with Joe and Lauren
Speaker 1: while I was out on vacation and talked about this.
Speaker 1: But the Guardian estimated that it could have been around
Speaker 1: nine almost nine fifty thousand metric tons of nitrous oxide
Speaker 1: or nitrogen oxide emissions every year that this was this
Speaker 1: technology was out there. See what the numbers are just immense.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's all of this, this whole thing.
Speaker 1: And when you go back all the way to the
Speaker 1: two thousand eight model, you're you thinking that, well, this
Speaker 1: has been happening for seven years, for eight years now
Speaker 1: at this point, I guess model years. Um, it's just
Speaker 1: such a big, big problem. It's so enormous in all aspects.
Speaker 1: I really am having a hard time seeing how Volkswagon
Speaker 1: recovers from this. Right. And and as we pointed out earlier,
Speaker 1: if you already have one of these vehicles, then until
Speaker 1: there is a fix, you're going to continue to contribute
Speaker 1: to that that pollution. And it's not because you're a
Speaker 1: bad person. It's because the car itself, the way it's designed.
Speaker 1: That's that's just how it works. I mean to put
Speaker 1: it bluntly, you were sold a lie and you bought
Speaker 1: that lie. But you know why, it wasn't your fault.
Speaker 1: The government bought that lie too, because because they the
Speaker 1: wool was pulled over its eye. Yeah, I just kind
Speaker 1: of come clean. I drive a Volkswagen, but it's not
Speaker 1: a diesel. I think I mentioned that in the Forward
Speaker 1: Thinking episode two, and I love it. I mean I
Speaker 1: have it's a great engine. It's a lot of fun,
Speaker 1: but it's a gasoline burning engine. So I'm not involved
Speaker 1: in all this. And I gotta say that when I
Speaker 1: when I see a Volkswagen on the road now, I
Speaker 1: consciously look to the lower right corner of the back
Speaker 1: end of the vehicle and I try to see if
Speaker 1: it's a t d I equipped and a t D
Speaker 1: equipped vehicle, And I just think, like, what is that
Speaker 1: person going through right now? They're dealing with, you know,
Speaker 1: they bought a car that they thought was you know,
Speaker 1: all the things we said it and it's not. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're gonna have to deal with the dealership very soon
Speaker 1: about you know, what they're going to do to fix
Speaker 1: this and how they're gonna do it. Um, it depends
Speaker 1: on what make and model you have, what they're gonna do,
Speaker 1: how they're gonna handle it. Um. It's not gonna cost
Speaker 1: you anything except it is going to be very very
Speaker 1: inconvenient for you in the near future. And do you
Speaker 1: continue to trust that manufacturer with with those people? Buy
Speaker 1: another Volkswagen when all this is said and done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when when the two thousand seventeen models, presumably assuming that
Speaker 1: Volkswagen is able to produce them, when they come out,
Speaker 1: would they buy a diesel engine two thousand seventeen Volkswagen
Speaker 1: and well, other people that maybe we're kind of on
Speaker 1: the fence about Volkswagen, you know, they were considering it
Speaker 1: up until this point, or maybe someone just narrowly missed
Speaker 1: buying one or just bought one the day the things
Speaker 1: that this scandal broke. What do they do? I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many individual situations that I'm really curious about
Speaker 1: right now, and it ripples out so far. So we've
Speaker 1: heard the term that that they could be facing billions
Speaker 1: of dollars in fines and In fact, early on in
Speaker 1: this story, it was said that Volkswagen had already set
Speaker 1: aside like seven point three billion dollars for fines. Right now,
Speaker 1: the Guardian estimates that the amount of fines may accumulate
Speaker 1: to around eighteen billion dollars. Now that matches what I
Speaker 1: heard initially. The very first number I heard was like
Speaker 1: eighteen points seven billion dollars in d p A finds
Speaker 1: strictly here for the United States. Now going beyond that,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be is to pay elsewhere well, because they
Speaker 1: have agreements with European nations as well. So I don't
Speaker 1: know how you come back from something like this, I
Speaker 1: really don't. I mean, you can save, you can put
Speaker 1: money away, and they and you know, they have profitable quarters.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that you know. I haven't looked at the
Speaker 1: numbers of how much they make per quarter up to
Speaker 1: this point. But there's no way they're squirreling all that way.
Speaker 1: They're using it for new products, they're putting it back
Speaker 1: into the business. Of course, they desperately need another love
Speaker 1: Bug movie. That's that's gonna do it. Huh yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: if you wonder now if Disney will ever show the
Speaker 1: love Bug ever again after this, Uh, that was not involved. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: are you trying to implicate Lindsay Lohan in this. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the new one. I'm going back to the
Speaker 1: original because I loved the original. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1: It was fantastic film. I love it. Um No. One
Speaker 1: of the other things I wanted to mention, though, if
Speaker 1: you were talking about ripple effect, this gets super crazy.
Speaker 1: This could contribute to a severe economic downturn in Europe
Speaker 1: for multiple reasons. UM. One is that the confidence of
Speaker 1: a major European manufacturer has gone into sharp decline for
Speaker 1: obvious reasons UM. And it has prompted several strategists, equity
Speaker 1: strategists over at Bloomberg to readjust what their predictions were
Speaker 1: for the stocks Europe six hundred index, and they have
Speaker 1: adjusted it lower than what they had predicted. And because
Speaker 1: of Volkswagen's association with China as well and the Chinese
Speaker 1: markets which are very uncertain, this whole mess could get
Speaker 1: really ugly from an economic standpoint, which I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: get into because this is not an economics podcast and
Speaker 1: I am in no way qualified to talk about that
Speaker 1: that aspect of it. But it's kind of like when
Speaker 1: you start pulling back and pulling back and pulling back,
Speaker 1: you keep asking, am I am I back far enough?
Speaker 1: Am I seeing the full picture yet? You know, just
Speaker 1: just to tell you that, this last weekend, I was
Speaker 1: out with a couple of friends, my wife and I
Speaker 1: and uh, this couple that we were out with said
Speaker 1: that they were um buying Volkswagen stock right now because
Speaker 1: it's at a low point. And I was thinking, I
Speaker 1: don't know, is that a good move or is that
Speaker 1: a bad move? And I was thinking at the moment,
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, that's probably a good move
Speaker 1: because it's probably gonna come back. It's probably gonna you know, rebound,
Speaker 1: and everything's gonna be fine. But the more I hear
Speaker 1: about this, the last couple of weeks that I've been,
Speaker 1: you know, studying this, and especially this last week, when
Speaker 1: the enormity of this situation is really just finally hit
Speaker 1: me how big this is, I don't really know. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that is a good investment or not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't say for sure. And the stock
Speaker 1: price went from like a hundred and sixty seven dollars
Speaker 1: before the announcement of the discovery of this cheating or
Speaker 1: at least the public unveiling that you know, this was
Speaker 1: a thing uh today when I checked it earlier, it
Speaker 1: was a hundred and two dollars. So it does the
Speaker 1: smart money buy right now? Or do you wait and see?
Speaker 1: Because if you're talking about a company that maybe facing
Speaker 1: up to eighteen billion dollars in fines and we don't
Speaker 1: know that that's the full extent yet, I would be
Speaker 1: nervous to put money in that because I would think
Speaker 1: like this company might fall a little further before it
Speaker 1: bottoms out. It's probably not not the bottom yet. I
Speaker 1: think we can both agree with that. I mean, and plus,
Speaker 1: you know these fixes that they've outlined just this last week, Uh,
Speaker 1: these don't begin until and some of some of them
Speaker 1: it's like a three phase thing. Some of them don't
Speaker 1: begin until late seen. This is this is a long
Speaker 1: term problem for Folkswagen. It's not something that's gonna go
Speaker 1: away overnight. And it's uh, if you haven't read about
Speaker 1: it or you don't know exactly what they're gonna do
Speaker 1: for the fix, um, it's going to be very very
Speaker 1: costly for them. In addition to the fines that we're
Speaker 1: talking about, which are already enormous. What they're proposing is
Speaker 1: ridiculously expensive for a company to do. And yeah, and
Speaker 1: it costs not just money but also put potentially in
Speaker 1: moments of your vehicle, which also means it's gonna cost
Speaker 1: and customer satisfaction and loyalty. I mean, the costs here
Speaker 1: go beyond a dollar amount, you know. Can I just
Speaker 1: can I just run through this real quick, dieing dere
Speaker 1: I've mentioned about four times now, but I will quickly
Speaker 1: go through it, and I'll tell you what they're doing.
Speaker 1: And this is this is UM. The plan has laid
Speaker 1: out by my um, the current us CEO, Michael horne Um.
Speaker 1: He spent several hours testifying in front of a congressional
Speaker 1: panel just this last week, and it's all about the
Speaker 1: you know, the emission scandal. And uh, you know the
Speaker 1: senators that he was in front of, they were you know,
Speaker 1: they're angry at him. They were incredulous, you know that
Speaker 1: that this this car maker would try to cheat the
Speaker 1: buy in public like this and the U. S. Government
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, sidestep all these these standards that
Speaker 1: they in place. And and the funny thing is, and
Speaker 1: I don't know that really say funny, but he's agreeing
Speaker 1: with them throughout this whole testimony. He's saying, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm angry at the manufacturer as well, are you know
Speaker 1: my company? Angry at them for doing this. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that this is all happening. Um, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: also upset. And so he has a bit of sympathy.
Speaker 1: I mean, he gets That's how he gains, I guess,
Speaker 1: is his sympathy with the people that are listening right, UM,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, you know, whether you want to
Speaker 1: or not. So there's like three different groups here, and
Speaker 1: I'll quickly go through it. I'm not going to list
Speaker 1: all of vehicles or anything like that, but UM basically
Speaker 1: covers two different engine types. And you can kind of
Speaker 1: group these into three groups. And you'll understand when I
Speaker 1: read it. But it's an old the older engine is
Speaker 1: the E N engine, and the new one is the
Speaker 1: E A to A eight engine. And the first group
Speaker 1: is it affects his sixty seven thousand vehicles. This is
Speaker 1: the smallest of the three groups here in the United States.
Speaker 1: And the fix is just an updated software fix. And
Speaker 1: so these are for you know, like the newer two models,
Speaker 1: and these are the ones that have the new e
Speaker 1: A eight eight engine. UM. Again the easiest fix, and
Speaker 1: that's because they're fitted with a selective catalectic reduction system
Speaker 1: or exhaust after treatment system that I mentioned earlier. UM,
Speaker 1: but really they're only going to need a software fixed
Speaker 1: to become compliant. And then the next group, this is uh,
Speaker 1: the the I guess in between group, you know, not
Speaker 1: not the biggest group that we'll get to last. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is just a through passat t d I, and
Speaker 1: this one will require an updated software fix and a
Speaker 1: possible hardware modification. So these are cars that have both
Speaker 1: a Lean Knox trap that we mentioned and an scr
Speaker 1: UREA system as well. And of course, you know the
Speaker 1: software hardware modifications that they're talking about. They're not really
Speaker 1: specifying what the hardware modifications will be for this specific vehicle,
Speaker 1: but vehicles are affected with that. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: like phase two and that's going to begin in mid
Speaker 1: That first one was early And as a side note
Speaker 1: on that first one that I mentioned, UH, they do
Speaker 1: know that you know, fuel economy will likely stay the same,
Speaker 1: but they said performance might be slightly affected, and that's
Speaker 1: bad news for people that own those vehicles sixteen you know,
Speaker 1: golf OUTI Jetta, you know, those vehicles are the ones
Speaker 1: that affected. So they don't know what it's going to
Speaker 1: do to the pisat t D I well. And the
Speaker 1: worst part about that is saying that they could be
Speaker 1: slightly affected me it even if it wasn't perceptible. By
Speaker 1: saying that it's going to be slightly affected, then you
Speaker 1: know the drivers are going to at least feel like
Speaker 1: there's a change in performance, even if it's not detectable
Speaker 1: on a meaningful scale. If you know, if you've heard
Speaker 1: that your vehicles performance might be slightly affected, that's enough
Speaker 1: to psychologically push you to believe that it doesn't feel well,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be sensitive to You're gonna be overly sensitive
Speaker 1: to that. You're gonna you're gonna think that whatever you're
Speaker 1: feeling is not what you should be feeling in your car.
Speaker 1: Even but honestly, it's probably gonna affect low end torque.
Speaker 1: It's gonna affect acceleration. And that's and that's the two
Speaker 1: things that you would really notice. That's the two things
Speaker 1: that make a car fund to drive. I mean, in
Speaker 1: most situations, you know, to can out top end speed
Speaker 1: because most people don't hit the top ends. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's very few opportunities to do if this if this
Speaker 1: fix somehow affected the top end, like maybe dropped it
Speaker 1: down five or something. You know, from the top end,
Speaker 1: not many people would ever experience them. But when you
Speaker 1: remove acceleration from say a stoplight or trying to get
Speaker 1: on the freeway, Uh, that's going to affect your your
Speaker 1: customer base. People are gonna say, we don't want it.
Speaker 1: So the last group, and this is the biggest one,
Speaker 1: this affects Now, this is a bad group to this
Speaker 1: effects two thousand nine through two thousan fourteen jetted T
Speaker 1: D Eyes, Golf T D Eyes, Beetle t D Eyes
Speaker 1: out e A three's. So you know how many of
Speaker 1: these vehicles you see on the road, They're everywhere, all
Speaker 1: these cars. These are the ones that have a Lean
Speaker 1: Knox trap only. So these are the ones that may
Speaker 1: require the most work. And it's the largest group. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's probably going to require a a well, of course,
Speaker 1: it will require software, you know switch, it's gonna require
Speaker 1: hardware modifications that probably include adding a complete um SCR system.
Speaker 1: You know that that the cleaning system that we talked
Speaker 1: about the UREA system, and they've even talked about for
Speaker 1: this group. This is how complex this would be. They said,
Speaker 1: it's gonna take you know, between five and ten hours
Speaker 1: to make this type of fix and per vehicle, which
Speaker 1: is an enormous cost to the to the manufacturer for
Speaker 1: the time of the technician to do that, plus the
Speaker 1: parts the park. Can you imagine what that costs. So
Speaker 1: they're talking about for this specific group of vehicles, this
Speaker 1: last group that they won't even start touching until late
Speaker 1: It affects oh, by the way, three thousand of the
Speaker 1: four hundred and some that I think it's fours here
Speaker 1: in the state of the Yeah, they're talking about um offering,
Speaker 1: you know, like cash cash back offers. They're talking about
Speaker 1: the entire vehicle buy backs, which is huge. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's been very few times in US history there it's happened,
Speaker 1: but very few times when the manufacturer says that car
Speaker 1: will no longer be on the road, we're buying back
Speaker 1: every one of them and they'll be shredded or whatever
Speaker 1: they happen to do with them. I don't know what
Speaker 1: the plan would be for this, but if they do
Speaker 1: a car buy back, the situation. They're likely just going
Speaker 1: to destroy those vehicles. It's yeah, it's it's hard to
Speaker 1: even comprehend. Really, Yeah, you wouldn't buy back the car
Speaker 1: and then fix it and then try to sell anything.
Speaker 1: So it only makes sense. It's logically making sense to
Speaker 1: me that they would buy them back and shred them
Speaker 1: in some way just for them. So this is a
Speaker 1: do you see what I mean? It gets worse and
Speaker 1: worse all the time. Yeah. The more you look at it,
Speaker 1: the more you realize, Wait, no, I I don't have
Speaker 1: the full comprehension of everything that can happen. And as
Speaker 1: the story unfolds, will probably learn even more, like maybe
Speaker 1: we'll learn exactly where this decision was really made and
Speaker 1: maybe it was a group of rogues software engineers who
Speaker 1: are just desperate to have Volkswagen engines appear to meet
Speaker 1: all of these specifications. Um, you don't just one more
Speaker 1: quick thing. I mean, it's super quick, but think about
Speaker 1: the thing. I think about the awards that this thing
Speaker 1: is one, because you know, it wins engine awards. Of
Speaker 1: course it wins in two thousand eight, which is the
Speaker 1: first year that we're talking about the VW Jetta t
Speaker 1: D I clean Diesel won the Green Car of the
Speaker 1: Year award at the l A Auto Show. UM now,
Speaker 1: what do you do with that? Do you go back
Speaker 1: and do you remove that award? I mean, yeah, I
Speaker 1: would imagine you have to strip the awards from the
Speaker 1: from the different models. Just this year, the Volkswagen Golf,
Speaker 1: now not not particularly the t d I, but the
Speaker 1: Volkswagen Golf was awarded the North American Car of the
Speaker 1: Year award at the um at the Detroit Auto Show,
Speaker 1: the North American International Auto Show. UM. So this thing
Speaker 1: along the way, that's just two. It's won many awards
Speaker 1: along the way, and it has long been luded as being, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of like the solution. This is this
Speaker 1: is what diesel should be here in the United States
Speaker 1: or really worldwide. Yeah. Well, I mean that was why
Speaker 1: German was looking into it in the first place. So
Speaker 1: I apologize for interrupting there. But the awards thing, I
Speaker 1: just had to get get that out there because they're
Speaker 1: they've been so heavily awarded for all these Diesel engines
Speaker 1: that what do you do with all that? Now? It's
Speaker 1: again part of the big problem. I guess it goes
Speaker 1: back to that phrase. You know, if it seems too
Speaker 1: good to be true. It probably is right in there.
Speaker 1: Why didn't they look into it when it did seem
Speaker 1: too good to be true? Again, I think it's one
Speaker 1: of those things where, well, you would either think, well,
Speaker 1: no company would be so bold as to as to
Speaker 1: try and fake their way through because the consequences, as
Speaker 1: we see now, the consequences are so dire for any
Speaker 1: company that would attempt that, it seems unthinkable that they
Speaker 1: would try and do that. Now, had they caught this
Speaker 1: in say two thousand nine or two uh, this would
Speaker 1: be dramatically different, would be a much smaller number of
Speaker 1: vehicles are affected. It would be an easier thing for
Speaker 1: VW to fix and say like a Holly, you gott USU,
Speaker 1: or or even for them to say like it would
Speaker 1: be even more believable for them to say, uh, this
Speaker 1: this was something that was uh, you know, not intended,
Speaker 1: but we will fix it like you could if it's
Speaker 1: if it's for a year, then you might say, well,
Speaker 1: there was something going on in the man manufacturing process
Speaker 1: where uh, someone had this brilliant idea or they thought
Speaker 1: it was a brilliant idea and the implication wasn't completely realized.
Speaker 1: Within the company, you could at least plausibly make that point.
Speaker 1: But we're eight years into this, eight model years into this,
Speaker 1: it's a lot harder to make that plausible argument. It is. Yes,
Speaker 1: and and even this eighth model year that was scheduled
Speaker 1: to come in, as you said, has been embargoed because
Speaker 1: there's a hold on Those vehicles are quarantined and not
Speaker 1: able to be sold here. So um, again, it's just
Speaker 1: a real head scratch all around. Why would they do this?
Speaker 1: Why why would a company allow this to happen? It
Speaker 1: is a little crazy. Now on, on a related note,
Speaker 1: I have a thing to wrap this up with, because
Speaker 1: obviously this is a story that's still going so it
Speaker 1: maybe a couple of years before it maybe actually a
Speaker 1: decade or more before we really see the full extent
Speaker 1: of how the story plays out. But uh, I have
Speaker 1: a related thing to ask you because it was something
Speaker 1: I had not heard of before, but I imagine you
Speaker 1: probably have. Have you heard about the practice called chipping? Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: this was new to me. So chipping is essentially an
Speaker 1: aftermarket approach to do pretty much what Volkswagen did, except
Speaker 1: this time it's a customer doing it on purpose to
Speaker 1: their vehicle. Yeah, to gain performance gains, so um, okay,
Speaker 1: or sometimes just to be a jerk face game. Let's
Speaker 1: be honest and I'll have a story about that in
Speaker 1: a minute. Okay, Okay, Well, I don't know what. I
Speaker 1: don't know what you're gonna come at me with you,
Speaker 1: but um, a lot of people that I've known have
Speaker 1: chipped their vehicles or have replaced the e c U
Speaker 1: or you know whatever that the flash upgrade or whatever
Speaker 1: the terminology was what they did. But there's a lot
Speaker 1: of different ways to do this. You can completely replace
Speaker 1: the the engine control unit and make your vehicle think
Speaker 1: that it's a different model year that has different performance
Speaker 1: specs or it's a you can make your US US
Speaker 1: spec vehicle think that it's a European spec vehicle and
Speaker 1: that it uh, it boosts the performance, you know, it
Speaker 1: allows a greater output you know, horsepower, tork, etcetera. Um,
Speaker 1: because you're not you're not electronically limiting your vehicle to
Speaker 1: whatever the standards are in the place that you are currently,
Speaker 1: So you're you're upping the manufacturers restrictions on your vehicle electronically. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And whether that's the top end restriction or it's a
Speaker 1: low end torque thing or shift points or whatever happens
Speaker 1: to be. Um, it's it's it's a common practice among
Speaker 1: tuners to do stuff like this of of you know,
Speaker 1: smaller vehicles, you know, like performance import type vehicles or
Speaker 1: even big trucks. A lot of diesel guys do that.
Speaker 1: In fact, they're programmable to the point where they can,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of change things around frequently as much
Speaker 1: as they want toy with the numbers and you know,
Speaker 1: make it really good for pulling and for towing, or
Speaker 1: they can make it, uh, you know, like performance gains
Speaker 1: for diesel engines. You get crazy great performance numbers out
Speaker 1: of a diesel engine if you just have it chipped correctly,
Speaker 1: which you know, again you you're getting great performance at
Speaker 1: the expense of the legality of the emissions from your vehicle.
Speaker 1: And you know, see there's the thing is that you
Speaker 1: can go back with a scan tool and change that
Speaker 1: back to whatever you needed to be for the emissions.
Speaker 1: It's exactly the same thing that Volkswagen is doing, except
Speaker 1: on a more manual basis. Yes, yes, and other people.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're outside of that tenure window or whatever,
Speaker 1: you don't have to have emissions testing. Then you know,
Speaker 1: it's fun to make your jeep Cherokee think that it's
Speaker 1: a cop car r and that can happen. You can
Speaker 1: do stuff like that. So one of the other things
Speaker 1: that you can end up doing with this. Okay, here's
Speaker 1: where we get to the jerk face part. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So sometimes when you chip a car of diesel powered
Speaker 1: vehicle and you activate it, one of the things that
Speaker 1: your vehicle might do when you pressed down on the
Speaker 1: accelerators belch out an enormous cloud of black exhaust. So
Speaker 1: you're talking about rolling coal, rolling coal, coal rolling or
Speaker 1: rolling coal. So Scott, I walk home. Oh no, it
Speaker 1: is a three mile walk from from here to my house.
Speaker 1: And there's a point that I like to rest at.
Speaker 1: It's it's a little more than halfway to my house.
Speaker 1: And usually at that point, especially on a hot day,
Speaker 1: I like to sit down on a bench that's outside
Speaker 1: of a lovely little flower shop in in uh the
Speaker 1: Kendler Park area of Atlanta, and I sit down and
Speaker 1: I rest for a few minutes before I continue on.
Speaker 1: It's it's lovely, you know. I I collect my thoughts,
Speaker 1: I relax, and then I get up to walk the
Speaker 1: rest of the way. There was a day not long ago,
Speaker 1: Scott although back when it was much hotter. When I
Speaker 1: sat down on that bench, got up, I'm ready to
Speaker 1: start walking. Well, it's at an intersection that's a four
Speaker 1: way stop, and it's a busy intersection with a four
Speaker 1: way stop, which is a little tricky for pedestrians because
Speaker 1: you have to make sure you have the attention of
Speaker 1: the drivers before you walk across. There's no light to
Speaker 1: time it with hazardous situation. Yeah. So there's a large
Speaker 1: red Diesel pick up to my left as I'm about
Speaker 1: to cross the street here and you can hear that
Speaker 1: loud knocking noise. You know, it's Diesel. So I am
Speaker 1: about to cross the street, but they decide they want
Speaker 1: to go. So not only do they go, but they
Speaker 1: flipped the switch and I am covered from head to
Speaker 1: toe in black exhaust as they turn right. So they
Speaker 1: turn in front of me. Uh so, because they were
Speaker 1: on my left, they turn right, so they go down
Speaker 1: the street. I was about to cross and belch out
Speaker 1: that black smoke while cackling and driving down that jerk
Speaker 1: faces Yeah that you know what that is a jerk
Speaker 1: face move. I agree, I agree that that whole that
Speaker 1: whole thing bothers a lot of people. I mean, other
Speaker 1: people say it's my right to do this, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do this no matter what you know, and and uh,
Speaker 1: I guess you could say that. You know, people have
Speaker 1: been doing this for exhibition for a long time. Like
Speaker 1: you know, we go to a like a tractor pull
Speaker 1: event or something like that. You see all those vehicles
Speaker 1: are belching smoke like that, and they're doing it because
Speaker 1: it's a there is a performance gain when you do
Speaker 1: it as well. But the situation that you're talking about,
Speaker 1: they were doing it just simply to be it's an
Speaker 1: effective to uh envelope you in this cloud of soot,
Speaker 1: and that's terribly dangerous for you. It's not nice on
Speaker 1: their part. It was dangerous for them to let's be honest,
Speaker 1: because at that point I was not happy. What it does,
Speaker 1: and just everybody knows is when you flip that switch,
Speaker 1: it just dumps a bunch of extra fuel into the
Speaker 1: engine and then that unburned fuel can't quite get burned
Speaker 1: off the way it normally would. And you know, with
Speaker 1: all those exhaust scrubbers that we talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: the particular filters and all that, it bypasses all that,
Speaker 1: and then you end up with this cloud of smoke
Speaker 1: that looks like um, like it's coming out if you
Speaker 1: don't the little trains that burn coal, it looks like that,
Speaker 1: and that's what they call it. They call it rolling coal.
Speaker 1: And uh, just so you guys know, out there, out
Speaker 1: there and listener land. According to John Swanson of California's
Speaker 1: Air Resource Board, any modification to a pollution control system
Speaker 1: is illegal unless the manufacturer of that product had proven
Speaker 1: that the modification doesn't result in any adverse impact on
Speaker 1: the environment. Yeah. Now again, any place that I've seen
Speaker 1: this happen in real life was has been like an
Speaker 1: attractor pullet or something like that. But I've never seen
Speaker 1: anybody actually had this done to them outside of video clips. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wish that. No, I don't know that. The second
Speaker 1: guest I've seen in traffic, I've seen some some uh
Speaker 1: you know, diesel trucks that are emitting quite a bit
Speaker 1: of smoke, but they're traveling at such a speed that
Speaker 1: I can't tell if they've done that. At a slow
Speaker 1: speed is very apparent what happens because it's a dramatic
Speaker 1: difference in the output of exhaust gases rather the cloud
Speaker 1: of smoke or whatever. Sot uh. I can't say for
Speaker 1: sure that I've never seen it happen in real life,
Speaker 1: but but I don't think so not intentionally. Like you know,
Speaker 1: when they there's a big truck and a priest is
Speaker 1: following it, you know, they they flip the switch because
Speaker 1: I think that's funny. Or a walker. A lot of
Speaker 1: times you'll see you can see videos of this where
Speaker 1: they go buy bikers or walkers or whatever and shoot
Speaker 1: these mean spirited videos where they the same to me
Speaker 1: did to you. It wouldn't surprise me if there's some
Speaker 1: video on YouTube where you see a an exhausted, sweaty
Speaker 1: bald podcaster coated in soot, Well, I'm sorry to hear
Speaker 1: that happened to you, man. That's yeah. As a as
Speaker 1: a pedestrian who already considers himself somewhat environmentally friendly, it
Speaker 1: was it was like it was like a cherry on
Speaker 1: top for my day at any rate. Yeah. By the way,
Speaker 1: car Stuff has a podcast on Rolling Cole. Oh wow, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: go check that out. Guys. That's not it's a completely
Speaker 1: shameless plug because there's no shame to be had. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely check out car stuff guys. Scott, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming on the show and kind of talking
Speaker 1: about the scandal and the technology behind it. Uh, this
Speaker 1: is a little bit of a departure from our normal
Speaker 1: tech stuff episodes, but I thought it was really important
Speaker 1: to talk about because it's something that's been in the news.
Speaker 1: It does have to do with the tech and in
Speaker 1: the software of the car, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff we could have touched on, but this this show
Speaker 1: has gone pretty long, so I don't want to continue
Speaker 1: it on anymore. But I mean this also ties into
Speaker 1: other elements of why it's it's harder and harder to
Speaker 1: tell what's going on with your vehicle, at least to
Speaker 1: tell and be sure that that's really what's happening. Sure you.
Speaker 1: I mean look at the false bill of sale that
Speaker 1: that all these VW owners were handed and it really
Speaker 1: kind of opened everybody's eyes to the fact or to
Speaker 1: the idea of what manufacturers could do to kind of
Speaker 1: toy with these things. Uh, that how much control they
Speaker 1: have over every little situation that your car can be in.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's very very specific and it's very very
Speaker 1: devious what they did, but um, well they got away
Speaker 1: with it for about eight years. But too bad for them,
Speaker 1: they had caught. Yeah, it was the wrong time to
Speaker 1: get caught. If they were gonna get caught and and
Speaker 1: somehow escape this, it should have been earlier. They thought
Speaker 1: they were gonna get away with it forever. And that's
Speaker 1: one of those points where you realize, like you are
Speaker 1: all in. By the way, thanks for having me on
Speaker 1: the show again. I appreciate it. It's it's always fun
Speaker 1: to talk with you here about the stuff. And and
Speaker 1: really there's so much more that we could talk about
Speaker 1: this whole thing. I mean, there's so many angles to
Speaker 1: this VW story and it's going to continue for years.
Speaker 1: As you said, Yeah, well, and if there are any
Speaker 1: major developments further on down the line, like several months
Speaker 1: from now, maybe we'll have you back on. We'll talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more about it and to kind of
Speaker 1: explore uh more of the that that element about how
Speaker 1: uh the technology of cars is making it possible for
Speaker 1: us to first of all, it's making it harder for
Speaker 1: us to work on our own vehicles, and secondly, it's
Speaker 1: making it harder for us to even understand what's happening
Speaker 1: with our vehicles here. I think that's an interesting conversation
Speaker 1: and it's it's one we've kind of touched on in
Speaker 1: the past when we talk about autonomous cars too, so
Speaker 1: maybe we'll revisit that. Guys, if you have any suggestions
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Speaker 1: or a guest host or an interview subject or anything
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