VW storing around 300,000 diesels at 37 facilities around U.S
By Paul Homewood
h/t Black Pearl
From Reuters:
Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) has paid more than $7.4 billion to buy back about 350,000 U.S. diesel vehicles through mid-February, a recent court filing shows. The German automaker has been storing hundreds of thousands of vehicles around the United States for months.
Volkswagen has 37 secure storage facilities around the United States housing nearly 300,000 vehicles, the filing from the program’s independent administrator said. The lots include a shuttered suburban Detroit football stadium, a former Minnesota paper mill and a sun-bleached desert graveyard near Victorville, California.
VW spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan said in a statement on Wednesday that the storage facility in Victorville, California, is one of many “to ensure the responsible storage of vehicles that are bought back under the terms of the Volkswagen” diesel settlements.
“These vehicles are being stored on an interim basis and routinely maintained in a manner to ensure their long-term operability and quality, so that they may be returned to commerce or exported once U.S. regulators approve appropriate emissions modifications,” she said.
In total, VW has agreed to spend more than $25 billion in the United States for claims from owners, environmental regulators, states and dealers and offered to buy back about 500,000 polluting U.S. vehicles. The buy backs will continue through the end of 2019.
The court filing said through Dec. 31 Volkswagen had reacquired 335,000 diesel vehicles, resold 13,000 and destroyed about 28,000 vehicles. As of the end of last year, VW was storing 294,000 vehicles around the country.
VW must buy back or fix 85 percent of the vehicles involved by June 2019 or face higher payments for emissions.
The company said in February it has repaired or fixed nearly 83 percent of covered vehicles and expects to soon hit the requirement.
Through mid-February VW has issued 437,273 letters offering nearly $8 billion in compensation and buybacks.
I wonder why it has not happened here?
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
“I wonder why it has not happened here?”
Merkel’s influence over Brussels.
And Brussels’ influence over May
Yep, plus May has no backbone, along with the rest of our government.
This is among the worst cases of crony capitalism we have witnessed in the 21st century. Up there with ‘Fred the Shred’ and RBS.
But strangely the EU is very quiet about it, probably under pressure from their German masters
Where is the Beeb when you need them, with their alleged ‘Investigative Journalism.’
All those assets stranded in the name of a non-problem.
And the non-problem will be solved? by covering them up with solar panel “farms”, along with land used to grow food for “vegans” avoiding meat.
I wouldn’t mind betting that they will stay there for a year or two, and then quietly get exported to developing countries, where pollution controls are less stringent, or non existent…
It was a team from the WVU College of Engineering who uncovered the VW slight-of-hand with emissions. They had a grant of about $70,000 for the study.
This article from NYT shows how the lab works–Yankee ingenuity cobbling together equipment: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/25/business/vw-wvu-diesel-volkswagen-west-virginia.html
They are doing other similar studies. Just a bit superior to the climate boys from the University of East Anglia.
A report on the initial findings:
Lead WVU Engineer, Dan Carder, a bit different from Michael Mann:
Actually, they have received not only very positive publicity, the Engineering School is now getting other similar grants. I’ll take this publicity over UEA’s CRU any day. I can see some of the Engineering campus from my house.
What a gross waste of resources. Surely, away from air pollution hotspots, the cars pictured could be used as is with negligible impact on the environment. The sad thing is that very few people would have bought their car on the basis of the govt. test figures. Fuel consumption and cost seem to be secondary in the UK, where drivers pass supermarket pumps to pay more at their favourite petrol station and where they’re often seen sitting in the car with the engine running for minutes on end.
If I had a VW I would not be in hurry to get it ‘fixed’ since it sounds like they run worse when it had been done. I would want my car to run as efficiently as possible.
As an automotive aside, you can’t help but smile at the current problems that are hitting Tesla at the moment with an auto pilot crash under investigation that includes a fire, recalls, and still they can’t deliver on production promises and burn cash. And the self-drive Uber kills a pedestrian. Not looking so good for the sunlit uplands of futurist transport.
“And still they can’t deliver on production promises”
Tesla has called for people to VOLUNTEER their time, to help hit production targets and prove the “haters” wrong!!
Presumably if diesel engines should be chivvied out of use so should wood-burning stoves.
“I wonder why it has not happened here?”
Sumpfink to do, because Britain is under the cosh of the ECJ and the ECJ have not adjudicated that their mates in VW (Nox emissions cheating data) did aught wrong, whereas SCOTUS is a far more independently minded body and one which usually recognizes the primacy of the wellbeing and rights of the individual citizen. The ECJ does the obverse – protects the state, protects the big boys – that’s what it was designed so to do.
Next.
As another avenue to explore …
As diesels in general are and have been very efficient over their petrol equivalents, a return to petrol would reap more duty income EU wide, hence the smear campaign, or am I being too cynical ?
‘Petrol v diesel’ – It too had crossed my mind but then, I AM very cynical.
😉
Just read the other comments….nothing further to add!
I wouldn’t be surprised if ultimately it turns out that the VW diesels are eventually shown to be cleaner than most other diesels.
Here comes another assault on diesel.
Shipping faces demands to cut CO2
By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst
31 March 2018
<International shipping produces about 1,000 million tonnes of CO2 annually – that's more than the entire German economy.
. . .
Campaigners say huge improvements in CO2 emissions from existing ships can be easily be made by obliging them to travel more slowly.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-43584963
These idiots don’t get that slowing deliveries down would cripple the global economy, and/or require even more ships as everything would take longer to return to its starting point.
Air bnb opportunity or pehaps buy them for ‘cents on the dollar’ and retrofit AdBlue.