They missed a single emission standard, for a quite short time. It's a crime, but every punishment should be proportional to the negative result. In this case, fine seems sufficient, as money from it could be used to put more filters on e.g. coal plants.
I think we have much bigger issues with coal plants, iron extraction from the ore, making concrete, commercial trucks with worse emission equipment requirements, or even airplanes still using leaded gasoline, etc.
You do realize they literally bought monkeys, put them in cages, piped the exhaust from their "clean" diesel cars right into the cages to desperately try to justify their lies. This was a reactionary response and a last ditch effort to try to spin the story after they were caught cheating on the emission tests. These people are straight up psychopaths and deserve punishment.
Edit: Now I'm being downvoted, we live a society where companies do so devious acts that people sound crazy when they point them out. Yes, this sounds too heinous to be true, but the sad fact is that it is true, watch the documentary for full story: https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1FI0VR
Well, the exhaust in reality is much more clean then presented in some media. It's not a perfect way of showing that, but I get their point. We need to keep our risk awareness calibarated to the issue at hand and with relation to other risks in our life.
You are applying "psychopath" label in a very liberal way. They cheated. They tried to hide it. It's a fact. It still doesn't make them psychopaths.
VW devised software to detect when an emission test was being performed and blatantly cheated the testing system so more people would buy their cars in the belief that they were environment friendly when they clearly were not. They got caught but instead of admitting fault they showed a complete disregard for animal life by piping diesel exhaust into monkeys for several hours. It's one of the most sickening business practices I've heard of, it's outright evil and sets a dangerous precedent. I will never understand how people can defend these kinds of actions and resort to trivialising their heinous acts. Have we become so calloused that we freely make up excuses for this kind of behaviour? What message is that sending to these companies? Sorry for being so judgemental but I find this awful. I really recommend watching the documentary to grasp the nature of how terrible the people calling the shots on this were.
,,We need to keep our risk awareness calibarated to the issue at hand''
I completely agree with you in this, I was writing the same thing. That's why I wrote that the total amount of time taken away from people must be estimated. If it turns out to be less than 100 lives, I agree with you as in that case the cost savings are justifying switching to newer cars, even if they are not hybrids. The problem here is that we're talking about a much higher number of man years taken away.
Made a fresh reinstall of Kubuntu 18.04 (previously I had Kubuntu 16.04 on my primary desktop).
Everyting works, drivers were detected (including nvidia). Multiscreen setup works, no DPI problems, fonts are clear, performance is better. Default plasma setting are way better than 16.04.
Experience is very smooth.
Disclaimer: I'm not using sleep/hibernate, so no comment there.
BTW: it seems that most of binaries are being build as PIE, which also becomes the default mode for gcc (-pie/-no-pie).
"Had a conventional gasoline car encountered the same object on the highway, the result could have been far worse."
Diesel-powered car would be much safer, since oil requires something like a wick in it to burn. It's hard to argue with Tesla's statement, since argument is true; but it doesn't include this issue in electric vs ICE vehicle competition.
dual mass flywheel: irrelevant for the US market (think older torque converter automatic; new ones have dual mass flywheel for gasoline engines too).
diesel injectors: direct gasoline injectors are very similar.
turbo: common in modern gasoline engines due to downsizing and direct injection.
particulate filter: while I respect the following statement: "The cheapest, fastest and most reliable components are those that aren’t there."
(Gordon Bell), thermal efficiency of a diesel cycle may make it worth.
ECU faults: those actually help with solving problems before they are serious. Please go to qualified workshops! Computers are no longer a dark magic.
I haven't heard great things about modern smaller-capacity direct injection turbocharged petrol engines either, though the economy figures always sound excellent.
As for the problems I describe, I am merely relaying issues I have heard people complain about! If people take their car to a non-franchised garage, or do things themselves, ECU errors tend to get them going to the official garage because only they have the appropriate equipment. But this always seems to be a bit hit or miss, requiring multiple visits.
People's suggestions that diesel engines are extra-reliable seem to be somewhat wide of the mark. Ye olde diesel engine of yore was simple, slow, noisy, dirty, and would run forever; thanks to modern technology, that all seems to have changed...
The data doesn't support many of your views. Specifically, the claim that modern engines are somehow less reliable than the "good old days". I know you're only reporting anecdotes from people you'd consider to have a good view on the matter, but you have to keep in mind the biases involved with those views. A mechanic sees nothing but broken cars all day long. Their views are going to be skewed by their experience. Those views are not reflective of the much greater population of vehicles that experience no problems at all.
The reality is that cars have never been more reliable:
> “The long-term dependability of three-year-old models has improved year-over-year, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2013 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study.
> “In 2013, overall vehicle dependability averages 126 PP100–a five percent improvement from the 2012 average of 132 PP100–and is the lowest problem count since the inception of the study in 1989.”
Simplicity makes engines easier to work on for the layman, but it doesn't necessarily make them more reliable.
I'm a total gear head. My love affair with cars started really early. At 3, I figured out how to use a screw driver by taking the tail lights off my dad's VW Beetle. At age 7, I helped my dad tear a VW Beetle's 4-cylinder boxer engine down to the case halves, then put it back together. I was infatuated with the process and the understanding that came with every part we removed and reassembled.
I often wonder whether my father and I could have accomplished the same with (just an example) the new Ford Ecoboost 1.0L 3-cylinder, but I recognize that giving up that simplicity has resulted in an overall improvement in reliability and quality for the vast majority of drivers.
