VW Facing State-Level Lawsuits Over TDI “Cheating”

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The state of Kentucky is suing Volkswagen AG, claiming the German automaker’s diesel emissions cheating scheme violated the state’s Consumer Protection Act.

“Volkswagen must be held accountable for its false and misleading promotion and sales of its vehicles in the Commonwealth,” Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear said in a statement on Tuesday.

The automaker has admitted installing diesel emissions software to allow 580,000 U.S. diesel vehicles sold since 2009 to emit up to 40 times legally allowable emissions. It faces a continuing U.S. ban on selling 2016 diesel models.

Beshear’s suit filed in Franklin Circuit Court also names VW’s Porsche and Audi units and seeks civil penalties for violations of the state’s Consumer Protection Act and an injunction barring similar future practices by the company.

Kentucky is at least the fifth U.S. state to sue VW, along with New Jersey, Texas, New Mexico and West Virginia. Harris County, Texas, is also suing Volkswagen.

On Jan. 4, the U.S. Justice Department filed its own lawsuit accusing VW of violating clean air laws and seeking up to $46 billion.

VW faces a Thursday deadline to disclose to U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco the status of talks over a settlement plan with the Justice Department; California, which issued a separate ban; and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A potential settlement could include buybacks and an agreement to repair at least some of the vehicles.

Volkswagen spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan declined to comment on the suit. “Volkswagen’s top priority is to identify a solution for the affected diesel vehicles. We continue to cooperate fully with EPA and (California Air Resources Board) to achieve this goal,” Ginivan said.

VW faces more than 500 civil lawsuits that have been consolidated before Breyer, who has retained a former FBI director as a settlement adviser.

The automaker also faces investigations by 48 U.S. state attorneys general.

The U.S. Justice Department and German prosecutors are also investigating the automaker, which has said up to 11 million vehicles worldwide were equipped with the software.

9 COMMENTS

  1. As the federal governments worries about fractions of a percent of pollution, most of the rest of the world doesn’t give a crap about it. At all. That’s the irony of it all, all of this is largely a farce as the rest of the world isn’t wealthy enough to give a s**t. Only the wealthy can afford to be “clean”, and since the world is far from being wealthy even here in the US, well…………….

    My late uncle owned a small construction firm for nearly 50 years. One of the things he operated was a small asphalt plant. Over the years he had to add more and more anti-pollution equipment to it. He was fined a number of times by both his state and the feds, as the equipment was cumbersome and unreliable (and expensive). That equipment isn’t grandfathered, as it is rebuilt generally about once a decade (otherwise it won’t work) and had to be upgraded no matter.

    The last round of increased regulation was just before he passed away. At that point, that was the end of that plant, as there was no longer an economical solution. That was about 15 years ago now, so long before the Obama regime really turned up the heat on this stuff. So most of the family figured the only value it had left, was the scrap metal price.

    The plant just stood unused a year or two after my uncle passed away. My cousin wasn’t up to demoing it so it just sat. But one day he gets a call from a equipment broker, asking if he was willing to sell the plant. My cousin, says, who would want to buy it since you couldn’t operate it? We have a foreign buyer, the broker says.

    Turns out the buyer was the Afghan government. They were buying just about any used Asphalt plant they could get their hands on. Even my uncle’s nearly 50 year plant. The sale was made, and Afghan army mechanics showed up with about a dozen shipping containers. They took it apart and it was gone.

    Except for the pollution control equipment. It’s probably still sitting back there rusting. So my uncle’s old plant is making asphalt again, on the other side of the world, without ANY pollution controls at all. Probably even less then what was originally on it back in the 1950’s when it was new.

    So what would have been better? Allowing it to operate with somewhat old equipment here, or without anything at all on the other side of the world? I know my cousin would have liked to have been able to make a living with it. And with rebuilding it likely would have lasted long enough for my cousin to make a career of it.

    • ” Only the wealthy can afford to be ‘clean’”
      Exactly. When you are concerned about where your (or your kid’s) next meal is coming from, who gives a rat about pollution. While you would of course prefer clean water, any water is better than none.

    • How about Obama’s CO2 agreement with China? China will keep increasing for a couple more decades then consider reducing their CO2 output. It makes CO2 reduction in the USA entirely moot. It becomes a rounding error in the face of what China is allowed. If our dear leaders and their useful idiots believed in CO2 driven “climate change” this wouldn’t happen. It’s proof they don’t believe in it. It’s just a racket to them. Placing the emission point for CO2 on the other side of the planet does nothing according to what they are selling. At least cleaning up an asphalt plant has some benefits for its immediate neighbors.

      • How about all the C02 emitted by the military? The 10,000-plus (literally) M1 Abrams tanks clanking around? How much C02 is emitted by the thousands of military jet aircraft and so on?

        If they really cared, if they really believed a “climate change” crisis was at hand, they’d stop needlessly pouring C02 into the air. I think a couple of nuclear-armed subs (each with a dozen or more SLBMs) is plenty sufficient deterrent… don’t you?

        • Subs aren’t a deterrent, regardless of armament. No one has the balls to flatten Mecca, say, so having the weapon is pointless.
          Truth is, most people cannot understand beyond the basic tribal dynamics. So, the State is the Tribe… But we don’t allow for the 4th-gen warfare, same as the “censorship” concern “cannot apply” to Google or Facebook. It’s a “private corporation,” so they can do what they want. But like the drug regulators and the pharma business are in bed together? Same effing deal.
          Google is censoring dissident websites. They didn’t think that up on their own, I don’t think. Google Ads follow the same thing – so Eric (and many others) are out a few hundred dollars a month, I.E., their operating costs, with no viable alternative revenue source.

          http://khn.org/multimedia/status-quo/

          Can’t cross-link, you’ll have to click.
          Point is, if you play by the rules, you show you’re a sucker. Like a spy, or a ninja (old-world spy?), or a guerrilla fighter… You’re not part of the “regular army,” so there’s no state to attack in retaliation.
          So, make or corrupt THE company that does “X”. this company now only operates to server your directions… A Google, say, that suppresses content? Cannot run without government sanction, but it’s a “private company,” so it’s not “censorship.”

          We can’t accept that. Our country is falling apart as is, we cannot AFFORD to ignore that there is a relationship between FedGov and every major corporate player out there. We’re hitting the point where we have a set of shmucks JUST missing the literal words of a law – and then using their de facto, but not de jure, monopoly power to shut down everyone and everything else.
          E.G.: Microsoft vs. Apple vs. Linux.
          Republican/Democrat (Rulers) vs. the Citizens.
          Google vs. (any other search engine)
          Facebook vs. LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. [Easy comparison, Wall Street Journal vs. Panorama Newspaper, http://www.inforeklama.com/partners/newspapers/panorama/info.htm%5D
          Google Ads vs… Does anything even exist? Do you have to go shopping for your own advertisers?

          Using this deception on the simple-minded (or overly honest/honorable, who become simple-minded as a result of their own integrity – they can’t comprehend someone doing something dishonest, because they would not do such things themselves) – you incrementally move towards a society where power and money (and all the things that lead to those) are under the control of a small elite group.
          They don’t need to make the laws, they just adapt to the laws as written, and ensure their hands are clean. E.G., Bill Gates isn’t responsible for the virus released by his company’s auto-update system…. Or the backdoor holes in his software company’s software…. But you KNOW there were people fired over these things.
          If the software goes to Production and there’s a bug, they’ll sack QA. Not Development, who wrote buggy software, delivered late, and then rode QA to stop wasting time and send it to Prod. Not even the QA manager, who put the political side first and supported the business demands while ignoring the lack of testing.
          Some QA person will be sacked for failing to perform their job…

          We need to consider the reality, en toto, and make some hard decisions about how to deal with the venal SOBs actually causing the problems. And just because they haven’t aggressed against you personally, doesn’t change the fact they are a menace to civil society, and must be dealt with.

          THAT is what should define the “Tribe” here. Proper sorting of the responsible parties. No “pass the buck” permitted.

          As to the CO2? Well, that’s a concern for the “little people” – not our ersatz rulers who are so much better than we, because they sucked the right dicks… (as opposed to us, who believe there’s something to be made of ourselves, and debasing ourselves to those in power is a shitty way to live.)

        • Oh don’t get me started Eric… I’ve pointed that out many times. If they believed their own preaching they would stop all these wars.

          BTW Governments are also the biggest polluters of stuff that actually causes harm. I’m going to guess that the military asphalt plants don’t have any sort of emissions controls.

          • Military asphalt plants? Surely you give them too much credit. Deep pockets don’t need no stinking plants of any sort. They buy their asphalt…..finished…..right down to the last detail.

      • It’s been said before, and it’s worth saying again. “Climate Control” is not about the climate, it’s about control.

    • What you’ve described isn’t new.
      Blacksmith was talking about it ages ago now, call it 1995. He explained how things went… Blacksmith is a fire hazard. He’s smelly, probably aggressive, and possibly irascible as well. He is noisy, too, and works all hours of day and night.

      So the village sticks him at one end, far away from the civilized folk.
      More people come to the town as it grows…
      They build homes around the blacksmith shop.
      Then they bitch about it, and “the town” makes the blacksmith move farther out…
      Repeat…

      It’s NIMBY. Not In My Backyard. We need a landfill, but not in MY backyard – go put it where those niggaz live, not near us civilized folk. Etc.

      NIMBY now equals NIM Country. Because it’s out of sight, there’s no pollution. Like the girls saying they’ll get a bacon cheeseburger and a diet soda, because anything times 0 is zero… so their lunch has NO calories. Same sort of lying to self.

      I have no problem with anyone running their plant their way in their country. I despise the made-up bullshit that justifies things. and I understand we dug “our own” grave here – OSHA, DEA, EPA, FLSA, etc, etc, etc. All of it is Gimme Something for Nothing. Which is why it is now more economical to put the plant somewhere else and ship the finished materials back – because the wages are lower, and the safety Cult hasn’t taken hold there, and much of what’s been done in the name of SAFETY and ENVIRONMENT is a cost with no benefit.

      Should’ve been shooting before I was born. But most people don’t really want to do anything. Don’t want to be inconvenienced. Just want the gravy train flowing in…

      FTAFTFH. And a small dose of lead from an elephant gun.

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