UPDATE: Another TTAC reader is seeing different prompts without the Goodwill Package offer.

The Volkswagen Diesel Information website is now listing the “2.0L TDI Customer Goodwill Package” and requesting vehicle identification numbers (VINs) for registration in the program. However, it does not seem to be working for all website visitors.

The signup form asks owners for a physical address, email address and vehicle mileage before asking for permission to use the information to contact the owner regarding future diesel emissions related updates.

TTAC was able to obtain a VIN for one of the affected vehicles with an owner’s permission to complete the sign up process.

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Government agencies from the United States, Canada and Germany will be testing diesel vehicles from automakers other than Volkswagen to check their compliance with emission laws.

According to The New York Times, regulators in North America “are significantly expanding their on-the-road emissions tests to cover all makes and models of diesel cars.” The same on-road tests found 3-liter V-6 diesel engines to emit more NOx than they did in EPA testing.

The EPA had already notified General Motors that its new Colorado and Canyon diesel pickups would undergo increased scrutiny.

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A number of Volkswagen engineers cheated on tests used to determine carbon dioxide emissions because goals set by former group CEO Martin Winterkorn were too demanding and difficult to achieve, reported German outlet Bild am Sonntag.

The report was “broadly confirmed” by Volkswagen, stated The New York Times. It’s believed goals set by Winterkorn, which would have made Volkswagen vehicles cleaner than required by European regulations, pressured the engineers to manipulate the tests as they were afraid to admit they could not meet those goals.

The engineers pumped up tire pressures to reduce rolling resistance and put diesel in motor oil to make the vehicles more fuel efficient, thus producing less carbon dioxide. The practice “began in 2013 and carried on until the spring of this year,” reported Automotive News.

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Volkswagen engineers in Germany are afraid to do business trips to the U.S. because one employee had his passport confiscated by U.S. investigators, reported Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany’s largest subscription daily newspaper, on Saturday.

The paper goes on to explain Volkswagen believes U.S. authorities want to question certain engineers and are preventing their exit from the country, and evasion of questioning, by confiscating their passports.

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Through an amendment by U.S. Representative Michael C. Burgess (R-TX) to the transportation funding bill, the House voted in favor of dialing back planned budget increases for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Thursday, Automotive News reported.

Those planned increases of $46.3 million for 2016 and $76.7 million by 2021 have been cut by $15 million per year.

Burgess is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade and is responsible for a 62-page draft bill that would have credited vehicles with three advanced safety devices an additional 3 grams of CO2 per mile, up to 6 grams of CO2 per mile for a car that communicates with the road.

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The United Auto Workers union announced late Friday that, while the majority of its 52,000 membership voted “Yes” to the tentative agreement, skilled trades workers voted 59.5 percent against the deal.

“The UAW has not deemed the tentative agreement ratified,” said the union.

It was previously reported the tentative agreement may not be ratified due to skilled trades workers voting down the agreement.

UAW production members voted 58.3-percent in favor of the proposed contract and 55.43-percent of total voting members agreed to the proposal, but the contract can not be ratified until it is passed by skilled trades members. Read More >

Thursday afternoon, legendary car customizer George Barris left this mortal coil at the age of 89, leaving behind a decades-long automotive legacy.

The self-described “King of Kustom Kulture,” Barris was customizing cars long before turning a Lincoln Futura concept car into the first of many iconic Batmobiles, according to The Detroit Bureau. He and his brother, Sam, began customizing while in high school in Roseville, Calif., using the money earned from working on a 1925 Buick to buy and build a 1936 Ford.

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Ford and the United Auto Workers union announced Friday they’d reached a tentative agreement which, if ratified, will become the rules of work for Ford’s 52,000 unionized employees for the next four years.

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Toyota said Thursday that the world’s largest automaker would no longer use the beleaguered company’s airbags, joining Honda, Mazda and others, putting in doubt that supplier’s viability, Bloomberg reported (via Fortune).

Reuters (via Automotive News) reported that the automotive supplier, who was hit with a $70 million fine from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration earlier this week, is preparing for the worst.

“We are considering some plans to survive, but it is not at the stage I can talk about yet,” CEO Shigehisa Takada said Wednesday, according to Reuters.

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Forget the SUVs for a moment. Cadillac sold more than 100,000 cars in 2013 with similar totals achieved by the ATS, XTS, and CTS. The market has expanded since then, albeit not nearly as much on the car side of the ledger as in the light-truck portion.

Nevertheless, Cadillac will likely sell fewer than 70,000 cars in calendar year 2015.

Is the upcoming CT6 the answer the Cadillac’s car woes, or just another big Cadillac that will do little more than generate all its showroom activity by stealing sales from the CTS and XTS? Read More >

I was driving along the other day and I realized something: the Toyota Highlander Hybrid is currently the most popular vehicle in North America.

Okay, this might be a slight exaggeration. For instance, I am told that the bicycle is quite popular. But on a list of today’s most popular vehicles, the Highlander Hybrid is right up there with the bicycle, and the wheelchair, and that Ford pickup that sells more units in an afternoon than Ferrari sells globally in an entire calendar year.

It is very obvious to see why the Highlander Hybrid is so popular. For one thing, it’s a normal family SUV with three-row seating, which is incredibly hot right now; so hot that I am quite certain it is not actually possible to rear children in today’s society without a three-row SUV. If you showed up at a child’s birthday party in a Toyota Camry, and you had forgotten to dress your child, and you had brought the wrong child, and your child was vomiting all over everything in sight, people would not call attention to your child-related issues. They would ask: Why don’t you have a three-row SUV?

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Since the last installment in this series, my attempt to get the family Town & Country officially licensed here in Japan has slogged relentlessly forward.

After a week of such little progress that I saw no need to report upon it (action was limited to the receipt of my official approval from the recycle bureau), I can begin this by saying that over the past week important things are once again happening. Notice that I didn’t write: “Important progress has been made…” Read More >

With hours remaining until voting ends on the tentative contract between General Motors and the UAW, support for the contract continues to grow.

According to The Detroit News, over 80 percent of GM’s 52,600 hourly employees have had a chance to look over and vote upon the agreement, including those in Lordstown Assembly in Ohio, and Lansing Delta Township Assembly in Michigan.

Among Lansing’s over 3,000 employees, 54 percent of production and 43 percent of skilled trades workers voted in favor, per UAW Local 602. Over in Lordstown, Local 1714 (Stamping, Complex West) found healthy majorities in favor of the contract — 67.9 percent production, 57.4 percent skilled trades — while Local 1112 saw 72 percent of production and 29 percent of skilled trades workers voting the same. Both unions represent over 4,100 Lordstown employees.

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Note: Yesterday, Mark Stevenson, using “news” about the revised Mercedes-Benz GLS as an object lesson, points out how wasteful car manufacturers’ and suppliers’ press releases can be. They waste pixels, paper, our time and ultimately get in the way of providing worthwhile content for you, our readers.

Not all press releases are a waste of time, though. I coincidentally happened to be buttoning up this post when Mark’s editorial went live and realized that my particular piece was 100 percent the result of getting a much shorter press release, albeit from a much smaller car maker (in both senses of the word) than Daimler. 

It’s always nice to get paid, but one of the better parts about this gig can be the interaction we have with readers. We’ve written about TTAC reader John Kit and the enthusiasm John and his teenaged daughter Emma have for making realistic slot cars based on historic sporting automobiles. I was particularly touched by the custom Jim Clark Lotus Cortina they made that was inspired by a post of mine. They don’t just make one-off slot cars; John set up Studio 65 to market 1:32 Jaguar X120s that Emma makes, scratch building the chassis and casting the resin bodies herself. The Jaguar was followed by a Ferrari 340 America. Recently, Emma wanted to build something “fun and cute”, so now they’ve introduced their latest slot car: the Austin Healey “Frogeye” Sprite. Read More >

A few weeks ago, I made the argument that there can never be such a thing as a “cheap” Porsche. Certainly, there are Porsches that are cheaply made, and certainly some that can be purchased cheaply, but considering the substantial sums of time and money involved in righting a car that is wrong, it’s a folly to even consider it.

Yet, here I am again, perusing eBay. As I write this, there are 155 Boxsters for sale, in various conditions. Quite a few sit under the magic $10,000 mark, including a part-disassembled car for a mere $3,200.

I know. It’s an illness. Talk me off the ledge, please.

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