An anticipated multi-billion dollar lawsuit from disgruntled Volkswagen shareholders is without merit, the embattled German automaker said on March 2.
A document made public by Volkswagen states that the suit, which alleges a violation of disclosure obligations under capital markets law, is doomed to fail following an examination by legal experts from both inside and outside of the company.
After staying relatively clean in the ongoing diesel emissions scandal that’s keeping European automakers up at night, Mercedes-Benz now finds itself the potential target of an Environmental Protection Agency investigation, Automotive News Europe reports.
The EPA’s request for information targets the nitrous oxide emissions of the company’s Bluetec diesel engines, and comes less than two weeks after a class-action lawsuit was filed by law firm Hagens Berman (of General Motors ignition switch fame).
Yes, that sound you’re hearing is executives loosening their collars in Stuttgart.
There’s something unique about Jaguars. For some people it’s the aristocratically British character, sporty pedigree and classic, elegant style of Jaguars that make them special. For others it’s the strange technical solutions, uncomfortable compromises and utter lack of reliability that make Jaguars a non-option.
These two groups aren’t likely to agree about much when it comes to Britain’s luxury marque, but both camps will likely be of the opinion that a four-cylinder diesel engine doesn’t fit the driving experience emoted by Jaguar’s iconic Leaper.
Will the upcoming Jaguar XF 2.0-liter diesel still be a proper Jag? Or will its stops at oily diesel pumps also frequented by Ford Super Duty pickups and NOx-belching Volkswagens cover the brand’s grand sporting image in a thin layer of soot?
We already have it in Europe, so I took the opportunity to find out.
Owners of some Volkswagen TDI models are experiencing premature selective catalyst reduction (SCR) failures because of AdBlue heaters that, in some cases, aren’t lasting more than 50,000 miles.
According to a source who spoke to TTAC under the condition of anonymity, many Volkswagen TDI owners are arriving at dealerships after seeing check engine lights for failing AdBlue (diesel emissions fluid) heaters. Those heaters, explained the source, fail “based more on time than mileage” and cost over $1,000 to replace.
The cost of the parts and labor is a slap to the face for many TDI owners, as SCR systems in those cars are not scrubbing the required amount of NOx from diesel exhaust even when the AdBlue heaters are operating properly.
Kenneth Feinberg, the man behind Volkswagen’s claims fund, stated American VW TDI customers should expect an offer that will make them very happy in an interview published this weekend.
When asked by Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (via Reuters) what he will offer the more than 500,000 Americans who own dirty diesels, he replied, “I can promise that there will be a generous solution.”
What that solution will be is anyone’s guess, including Feinberg’s.
“The jury is still out, and at the moment all options are up for debate: cash payments, buybacks, repairs, replacements with new cars,” he said.
Volkswagen Group of America has begun the process of buying back cars affected by the ongoing diesel emissions scandal, but you shouldn’t expect to receive a letter or phone call with a buyback offer anytime soon.
VW is going ahead with a buyback program that will see the automaker acquire affected vehicles from dealers’ certified pre-owned (CPO) inventories, a source familiar with the plan told TTAC.
A lawyer for Volkswagen said in court that the automaker would buy back cars that it can’t fix in time, the first admission from the company that some of its cars may not be fixable, according to the New York Times.
Volkswagen lawyer Robert Giuffra told a court last week during hearings related to the class-action lawsuits facing the automaker that the company hadn’t determined how many cars would be affected.
“We might have to do a buyback or some sort of a solution like that for some subset of the vehicles, but that hasn’t been determined yet,” Giuffra said according to the report. (Read More…)
Refuting a report that many Volkswagen managers were involved with a widespread cheating scandal involving 11 million cars worldwide, at least three different regional offices and hundreds of employees, the automaker’s top brass has other ideas.
“No one has spoken with me,” Volkswagen’s CEO Matthis Müller told reporters on Thursday according to Reuters. “You got the information from some sources who have no idea about the whole matter.”
Set us straight then, Müller. Tell us how hundreds of confiscated hard drives and terabytes of data from multiple offices — those are VW’s figures, not ours — and more than 380 interviewed employees contradict a report that a department was scared shitless to raise their hands and admit failure to higher ups? Because that case is shaping up quite nicely. (Read More…)
That’s clearly a diesel gurgle coming out of that F-150’s lightly camo’d buttock.
If our ears are to be believed, that would be the pending fulfillment of a prophecy made here two years ago: Ford is preparing a light-duty diesel to sell by 2018.
I have so many questions to ask: What about EcoBoost? Where does that oil burner come from? (Read More…)
Ah, the disastrous GM diesel V-8 cars of the 1978-85 model years, equipped with failure-prone engines that scared generations of Americans away from diesel cars. Nowadays, of course, diesels work just fine (except when they don’t), but it’s good to see the occasional reminder of these miserable GM cars in the junkyard as part of our American automotive heritage. Only problem is, just about all of these cars were crushed or had gasoline-engine swaps decades ago (I recall helping my uncle drop a Chevy 307 into a very clean Olds 88, around 1988 or so).
Here’s an extremely rare example that I found in a San Francisco Bay Area self-service yard last week. (Read More…)
Volkswagen just tabbed a former FBI director to be the highest paid traffic cop in the universe.
That, Renault is only “improving” its emissions, GM’s big bet on ride sharing and the world’s biggest auto supplier says diesel isn’t dead … after the break!
* But not the U.S. — at least, not yet.
Add the Mercedes-Benz C-Class Wagon to the list of vehicles available in Canada and not the United States. Mercedes-Benz Canada announced Thursday it would begin selling the long-roof version of the C-Class this year. To add insult to injury, it will be a diesel with all-wheel drive — and that’s it.
Mercedes did not disclose what shades of brown will be available.
The previous-generation C-Class wagon was not available in Canada or the United States.
Porsche’s CEO is confident that the fix for their 3-liter diesel Cayennes will be approved by regulators, which is more than Volkswagen can say at the moment.
That, Kia’s big Detroit show, GM’s plan to sell cars online and Volkswagen CEO has a momentarily lapse of logic … after the break!
Engineers at Volkswagen have proposed fitting a catalytic converter to more than 400,000 cars in the U.S. to comply with emissions, the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported Sunday (via Reuters).
The costly and lengthy fix could bring into compliance cars that Volkswagen admitted cheated diesel emissions test through an illegal “defeat device” that reduced nitrogen oxides by up to 40 times during test cycles.
Officials at Volkswagen didn’t comment on the report.
The New York Times says U.S. states attorneys general are accusing Volkswagen from withholding critical documents from their investigations into the automaker’s admission that more than 500,000 cars and SUVs in the U.S. were illegally polluting.
The report says that Volkswagen is citing a notoriously strict German law that protects data and documents from investigations overseas, and that their own investigations have stalled — similar to what federal regulators said when they filed a lawsuit against the automaker on Monday seeking billions.
Volkswagen didn’t comment on the report. (Read More…)
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