Quote:
Originally Posted by fieldodreams79
Yup, all our fault, like everything else in the world today. 
The worst thing about our regulations is that the eliminate the good stuff from overseas.
Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn has resigned. |
The market for diesel cars in the States is less than 3% (or so I have read) and that market has only come into existence recently - possibly as a result of "Climate Change" regulations fiascos.
The market for diesel cars in Europe is and has always been much larger (Especially France and Germany historically) for a number of reasons.
The effects of any potential real problems related to the failure of the regulators to regulate when their own tests are undertaken would be tiny (but expensive) in the US but with the rest of the world piling in opportunistically could destroy the EU vehicle manufacturing base, especially that of Germany.
Except, perhaps, for the likes of formerly US government subsidised GM and Ford. Chrysler might be abandoned and hung out to dry now it is effectively owned by Fiat which, iirc, was close to bankruptcy a few years ago.
Since nearly all of the "experts" (especially those with an ecological or health drum to bang) are now being quoted as saying they could not understand how the reported figures and "pollution" levels did not seem to match (no alleged science cited though) for the past few years it seems clear that even the man in the street was probably well aware that the tests were likely to be meaningless in the real world.
It will be interesting to see of a minor regulatory problem in the US leads to a melt down in the European economy - especially in the Eurozone. Is confidence in things European is shaken strongly enough it just might especially with some of the other factors (refugees/migrants, Greece, Russia, etc.) all bubbling under.
As a perceptive UK politician once said when talking about unrecognised risks in politics. "Events, dear boy, events."
Meanwhile Winterkorn, who would no doubt have retired already had he not been in such a powerful and financially rewarding job, has resigned and taken, reportedly, a large pension pot with him along with a very comfortable salary from last year and, presumably, this year.
I think I would do the same if I was in his position. I certainly would not want to deal with the all of the crap hitting the fan.