{"id":20192,"date":"2015-09-30T08:24:10","date_gmt":"2015-09-30T15:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/vw-the-latest-in-long-history-of-cheating-car-companies\/"},"modified":"2015-09-30T08:24:10","modified_gmt":"2015-09-30T15:24:10","slug":"vw-the-latest-in-long-history-of-cheating-car-companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/vw-the-latest-in-long-history-of-cheating-car-companies\/","title":{"rendered":"VW the latest in long history of cheating car companies"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON<\/strong> \u2014 In stock car racing, there\u2019s an old adage: If you ain\u2019t cheatin\u2019, you ain\u2019t tryin\u2019. You could say the same sometimes for auto makers up against stricter environmental rules.<\/p>\n

Volkswagen is far from the first company to stand accused of trying to game required emissions tests. Almost since the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1970, major manufacturers of cars, trucks and heavy equipment have been busted for using what regulators call \u201cdefeat devices\u201d \u2014 typically programing a vehicle\u2019s on-board computer to boost horsepower or fuel mileage by belching out dirtier exhaust than allowed.<\/p>\n

Critics blame a federal regulatory system that largely relies on manufacturers to \u201cself-certify\u201d that their vehicles meet required fuel economy and emissions standards. The Environmental Protection Agency spot-checks only a low percentage of the vehicles made in the U.S. or imported to test the accuracy of the data reported by manufacturers.<\/p>\n

Donald Stedman, a University of Denver chemistry professor who specializes in testing the real-world emissions of cars and trucks, said the economics of the auto industry can make it profitable to cheat. Complying with clean air regulations can add thousands of dollars to a vehicle\u2019s sticker price while diminishing the driving performance that customers demand.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery car company has an incentive to do this,\u201d Stedman said. \u201cSome of them get caught.\u201d<\/p>\n

Revelations this month that Volkswagen used sophisticated software on its \u201cClean Diesel\u201d models to beat emissions tests has rattled the auto industry and angered hundreds of thousands of customers who thought they bought environmentally friendly vehicles. Both state and federal investigations are under way and congressional hearings are planned.<\/p>\n

Over the years, several major auto manufacturers \u2014 including GM, Ford, Honda and, yes, Volkswagen \u2014 have been forced to pay hefty fines and recall vehicles after getting caught using defeat devices.<\/p>\n

General Motors agreed to spend $45 million as part of a settlement with government regulators over defeat devices installed in Cadillacs sold between 1991 and 1995. According to EPA, the cars\u2019 computers were programed to enrich the vehicle\u2019s fuel mixture when the climate control system was turned on, increasing carbon monoxide emissions to as much as three times the legal limit.<\/p>\n

GM agreed to a $25 million recall program to fix the emissions and agreed to pay $11 million in civil fines.<\/p>\n

In 1998, Ford agreed to spend $7.8 million on fines and fixes after defeat devices were installed in about 60,000 of the company\u2019s Econoline vans. What EPA described as Ford\u2019s \u201csophisticated electronic control strategy\u201d was designed to improve the thirsty van\u2019s fuel economy at highway speeds, but also increased smog-causing nitrogen oxide emissions to well beyond the law\u2019s limits. Ford agreed to voluntarily stop the sale of the vans and implemented a recall.<\/p>\n

During the same period, Honda agreed to $267 million in recall costs and fines to settle allegations it disabled a misfire monitoring device on 1.6 million Accords, Civics, Preludes, Odysseys and Acuras built between 1995 and 1997. Because of the disabled device, malfunction indicator lights intended to indicate poor engine performance wouldn\u2019t come on.<\/p>\n

Unaware their cars needed to be serviced, vehicle owners continued driving, damaging their exhaust systems and releasing more pollution. As part of its settlement with federal officials, Honda agreed to extend warranties for all the affected models, as well as provide free oil changes and tuneups.<\/p>\n

Also in 1998, EPA referred cases to the U.S. Justice Department against seven major manufacturers of heavy-duty diesel engines used in big trucks and earth-moving equipment after testing showed they used computer programing to pass emissions tests, then shift in actual use to reduce fuel consumption while pumping out prohibited levels of nitrogen oxide.<\/p>\n

In what was then the largest environmental enforcement case in U.S. history, companies including industry leaders Caterpillar Inc., Cummins Engine Co., Mack Trucks and Volvo Truck Corp. agreed to pay $83.4 million in fines and reprogram the computers.<\/p>\n

Even before cars and trucks began to rely on computer software to run their engines and exhaust systems in the 1980s, there were analog defeat devices.<\/p>\n

In 1973, VW was dinged by the EPA after it was discovered the company had installed temperature-sensitive switches that turned off emissions controls on about 25,000 Fastback, Squareback and bus models. The company agreed to remove the devices and eventually settled with the Justice Department, paying a $120,000 penalty.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s pocket change compared to what the company could be facing this time. The Clean Air Act allows for fines of up to $37,500 for each of the 482,000 suspect VWs sold in the United States, potentially totaling more than $18 billion.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Science Writer Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow Michael Biesecker at http:\/\/Twitter.com\/mbieseck<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 In stock car racing, there\u2019s an old adage: If you ain\u2019t cheatin\u2019, you ain\u2019t tryin\u2019. You could say the same sometimes for auto makers up against stricter environmental rules. Volkswagen is far from the first company to stand accused of trying to game required emissions tests. Almost since the passage of the Clean […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-20192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20192"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=20192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}