Volkswagen cheatd on diesel emissions, faces $ 18 billion fine

[LaCroix]

disagree. continue non-preaching, mono!

[alfred russel]

You're "I'm an irresponsible free rider and love polluting" shtick is getting a little old Mono.

In this case Mono has a point. The car buyers aren't the ones that suffered the harm. They shouldn't get compensation beyond what is required to fix the cars and perhaps something for the nuisance value.

The general public suffered the harm. The general treasury should get the bulk of the non remediative funds. Giving them to the car owners is just a windfall for the car owners.

[LaCroix]

article suggests the cars lost value due to the scandal, so that's probably the injury.

[Admiral Yi]

In this case Mono has a point. The car buyers aren't the ones that suffered the harm. They shouldn't get compensation beyond what is required to fix the cars and perhaps something for the nuisance value.

The general public suffered the harm. The general treasury should get the bulk of the non remediative funds. Giving them to the car owners is just a windfall for the car owners.

How is that Mono's point? 

[alfred russel]

In this case Mono has a point. The car buyers aren't the ones that suffered the harm. They shouldn't get compensation beyond what is required to fix the cars and perhaps something for the nuisance value.

The general public suffered the harm. The general treasury should get the bulk of the non remediative funds. Giving them to the car owners is just a windfall for the car owners.

How is that Mono's point? 

The harm done by a car that illegally clears emissions tests isn't to the driver of the car. It is to the general public.

Mono didn't use those exact words, but reading between the lines that was my takeaway.

LaCroix, presumably the fall in value is primarily due to the cars not being able to legitimately pass emissions tests. Supposedly VW is going to fix that.

[Admiral Yi]

My interpretation was he is indifferent to his car's emissions.

[LaCroix]

through a buyback + some additional cash for the inconvenience to the customers

[alfred russel]

through a buyback + some additional cash for the inconvenience to the customers

$5k-$10k is a lot for inconvenience. Especially for a VW.

[LaCroix]

buyback + inconvenience + punitive?
buyback + punitive?

I don't know the actual terms of the settlement or the rationale behind the settlement used to get the judge to sign off on it, but I'm assuming there's some reasonable basis behind this number

[derspiess]

article suggests the cars lost value due to the scandal, so that's probably the injury.

They absolutely did.  My buddy's wife's VW lost about $7,000 in value IIRC.

[Malthus]

In this case Mono has a point. The car buyers aren't the ones that suffered the harm. They shouldn't get compensation beyond what is required to fix the cars and perhaps something for the nuisance value.

The general public suffered the harm. The general treasury should get the bulk of the non remediative funds. Giving them to the car owners is just a windfall for the car owners.

How is that Mono's point? 

The harm done by a car that illegally clears emissions tests isn't to the driver of the car. It is to the general public.

Mono didn't use those exact words, but reading between the lines that was my takeaway.

LaCroix, presumably the fall in value is primarily due to the cars not being able to legitimately pass emissions tests. Supposedly VW is going to fix that.

I dunno if they can fix the emissions problem, and still maintain the same gas mileage.

If they can't, the loss in value is likely to be permanent, and the company would presumably be 100% to blame. So even the car-owning Monos of this world would deserve a payout. 

[Berkut]

I wonder if this penalty is enough to actually make Volkswagen think it was a mistake...

[Barrister]

I wonder if this penalty is enough to actually make Volkswagen think it was a mistake...

Check out what happened to VW's stock price since last year - pretty sure they feel it was a mistake.

[DGuller]

What's more amazing is how little they had to gain from it, it was all about rather marginal gain in engine performance in a small subset of vehicles they produced.  This is just the first of many hits, and it's already worth a couple of years of profits.  I guess the good thing is that this story gave the business world an example of how dangerous Josef Stalin school of management can be for the company.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

LaCroix, presumably the fall in value is primarily due to the cars not being able to legitimately pass emissions tests. Supposedly VW is going to fix that.

The decline in value is because meeting emissions standards is incompatible with the stated performance of the vehicles.  Otherwise there would have been no reason to do it in the first place.