Even 5 million VW diesels that pollute up to 40 times the legal limits is equal to pollution from 5*40 = 200 million legal diesel vehicles. This is a lot of extra air pollution in all counties that sell VW cars and it is certain to create premature death for 10s of thousands of people every year. It can help explain why air pollution levels are dangerously high in most European cities during many weeks of the year. These 5 million dirty diesels need to be taken off the road ASAP. Affected VW owners should be ordered by the relevant authorities to bring in their cars ASAP to VW service shops and get a loaner vehicle instead until VW finds out how to fix the cars. It is absolutely not OK that highly polluting vehicles continues to cause premature death on a grand scale. VW should also be fined for causing this massive pollution. In the US legislation a fine up to 35k USD per cheating vehicle is possible. The EU needs to fine VW for this as well. Air pollution is know to cause 7 million premature death every year on our planet. That is 12% of all humans on the planet will live a significantly shorter life because of air pollution. This is as serious as it gets. Air pollution is far more deadly than global terrorism that hardly registers by comparison. VW and police detectives also need to work fast to find those who did this and gather to evidence to trial them. There must be at least a hundred of VW 600,000 employees that are implicated. They need to be bought to justice for this appalling crime.

WHO on 7 million air pollution death.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2014/03/20140325-who.html

More than likely yes, if they are law abiding citizens / companies. People do like to add more fuel than necessary with tuners(to produce black smoke(partially burned fuel)).
Diesels have tons of after treatment, the only thing coming out of the tailpipe should be CO2 with a smattering of NOx and Soot/HCs, and maybe some ammonia from the urea. Modern diesels are scrubbed better than gasoline ICEs and offer typically cleaner exhaust streams. (In the US, with current standards... not talking old ones)

Talk is to make the gasoline ICEs go the route of diesel after treatment because its so thorough.(but its like $6-10K worth of equipment so its not gaining too much traction). That's why VW was one of the very few diesel providers in the US, its not really cost effective in the sedan market... trucks can amortize the cost more easily.

From personal experience, barring any secret codes yet to be found, I would give it a strong yes Calgarygary, but I should mention NOx is measured in ppm, so bigger displacement/more air allows for more NOx to be passed through legally... but still 2L vs 6.7L is nowhere near the 40x the standards. Most of diesel exhaust is ambient air... O2 numbers are fairly high unless its accelerating, its a very different animal to meter than gasoline ICEs.

Thanks CE.

Maybe the solution will be to abandon diesels as light duty low cost vehicles (unless another company is able to meet standards cost effectively). I wonder how that might affect refiners? This could be a shot in the arm for hybrids and PHEV's. It will be interesting to watch how this plays out.

The effects of the crime here in the USA pale in comparison to the effect in the EU, where diesel > 50% of cars. The air pollution in cities kills people, and NOx is a prime contributor. VW has blood on its hands.

I'd say a software fix should be enough... though as you said clett... the car may be rubbish to drive.

Likely they will make the car slower to respond to driver inputs on the accelerator pedal allowing the car to maintain emissions control, they will also de-rate the engine max power to avoid high NOx emissions.

A software issue got them into this mess, and likely it will get them out.

I will say... this could lead to reliability issues with the emissions systems installed on the vehicles already... I mean if they built it knowing that the system would be utilized once every year... odds are its not really up to snuff.

Odds are the governments and VW will come to an agreement... I imagine a monetary settlement, reprogramming of effected vehicles (it may not even get them legally up to EPA/CARB standards... but it will get close enough to be satisfactory for them)

This really could end VW as we know it... especially if 18Billion dollar fines are carried out. (and that would be just in the US... keep in mind Canada, China, the EU, India, etc.)

My money is on VW receiving a bigger fine for this than GM did for lying about killing 126+ people. That's how the US is run anyway...

It takes time for approval from VWs own people and from the courts for action to be taken... most recalls are known months or even a year before they are issued... this sort of just fell into VWs lap recently. The scope of this fix is massive... we are talking generations of vehicles, multiple region codes, older technology /ECUs etc. Its a very big recall just in the US, odds are it will come out in waves, like how most big recalls are done.

I don't expect a solution before VW is slapped with fines and has their day in court so to speak. The EPA will have to determine what sort of fix is acceptable / required. The EPA will work with VW to see that a fix is carried out... its just courts and recalls take massive amounts of time to complete. Soon as the recall is issued, there is a clock that starts, and makers get fined based on how quickly they can get almost all of the affected cars fixed.

If you ignore recalls for a vehicle in the states on your own vehicle, you'll probably have dealerships calling your house every day to get you in and serviced, especially if it is a safety recall.

Odds are programming can get them close enough to good that the EPA will slap their wrist with a fine, accept the half measure and call it a day.

If they change the emissions system on the car I could see it being warranted for another 50-100K miles on top of existing.

I guess another approach would be to have VW foot the bill for removing other sources of pollution equivalent to the sum total of their rigged cars. Problem is, you'd have to work that out for each locality. If we view NOx as a primarily urban problem, then VW argues that only its cars in urban areas should be used to determine that total pollution in each city and proper remedies. That still leaves VW open to civil lawsuits over loss of resale value.

For instance, a cash-for-clunkers program for pre-Tier5 diesels from all brands. But there aren't enough old diesel cars running in the US for that to work. If you extend it to commercial vehicles, are new commercial diesels sufficiently improved to justify replacement?

Look at how many parties now have good cause to sue VW: the US government agencies (EPA etc), VW car owners all over the world, VW stock holders, automotive parts suppliers with exposure to diesel, and if the bottom falls out of the diesel market, every other car manufacturer with diesel exposure (BMW, Merc, Opel, Fiat, Peugeot, Citroen, Renault....).

I'm not sure they'll have enough money after all this to put the cars right. Might Angela be asked for another bailout?

And the irony is that after VW certifies and installs its EPA-compliant fix, lots of VW owners are going to visit tuners to change it all right back again.

Germany has given VW 10 days to come up with a plan.