Volkswagen versus Australia on emissions and EVs
Volkswagen says it probably can't sell EVs and other fuel efficient/zero emissions vehicles in Australia because our emissions regulations are wrong. That's not, totally ironic at all, is it?
There is a category of ‘journalism’, typically motivated by entirely bad incentives, which I would categorise broadly as the ‘editorial suck piece’.
You need to be aware of this kind of alleged journalism, quite profound in the motoring media generally, both in Australia and overseas - because obviously you can just as easily access content from the US, UK or Europe and still be subjected to these same editorial ‘standards’.
This was the over-enthusiastic headline, which I found quite curious, in my favourite subsidiary of Costello’s crew, CarAdvice. Personal opinion.
At the helm of CarAdvice is of course one very interesting senior executive, Alex Parsons, who is also co-founder of euphemistically sounding The Meat Society.
He’s done well with this report, Alex, showing the audience he’s really only there for advertiser appeasement. Personal opinion.
CarAdvice is dead: Officially cancelled by Channel 9 >>
The anatomy of a ‘suck piece’ is really quite simple. You give some poor slob on staff the directive to ring up an advertiser (or a potential advertiser) and just let whatever corporate weasel picks up the phone babble some pre-prepared words with no merit onto the page until they decide to take a breath. Then you just post it. It’s a pretty easy gig.
And, happily, the babblers in this case are my very good friends Volkswagen Australia. No reference whatsoever to individuals is made or implied in this report, obviously.
These quotes you’re about to hear are attributed to an un-named Volkswagen Australia spokesperson. This is usually a sign that what’s being said has minimal substance because nobody wants to put their name to what’s being said. Kinda like a witness testifying in court - it’s hardly concrete evidence if the witness doesn’t agree to state their name and to tell the truth before the jury.
For the purposes of this commentary I’m assuming these statements are made directly by the company and not by an identified individual who is clearly just doing his job, speaking for the company, and probably working really hard for those corporate arseholes. It’s also my honest personal opinion.
Context is everything, I think you’d agree, and Volkswagen is of course the world’s foremost emissions cheating criminal authority, having intentionally conspired to defeat emissions laws by producing 11 million illegally modified TDI vehicles worldwide between 2009 and 2015. That’s an impressive resume - if that’s what you want to be renowned for.
Ex-Volkswagen boss Martin Winterkorn to stand trial over diesel scandal >>
It’s reasonable to assume this unconscionable criminal act by Volkswagen caused (or will cause) the indiscriminate premature deaths of about 1300 people - people just like you or me, or your kids or your parents.
That estimate is based on a peer-reviewed study published in Environmental Research Letters for the premature deaths just in the USA. I merely extrapolated it up in a straight line to the global number of vehicles wrapped up in the criminal scandal. It’s a directly proportional estimate. Ballpark only.
But surely killing some number not unlike 1300 people as a consequence of a global criminal conspiracy within a public company, which is partly government owned - surely that’s sufficient to earn widespread, enduring public opprobrium. And if not that, then what is?
It gobsmacks me, therefore, that anyone in a senior position in any Volkswagen company subsidiary thinks it’s a good idea to occupy any sort of quasi-advocacy terrain on emissions. Criticising emissions regulations should be prudently avoided by Volkswagen, for the time being, I’d suggest - at least it would be avoided if I were running the corporate communications ship. In my view the sheer hubris here is incredible.
Pro Tip: To Volkswagen Australia I would say, with all due respect (ie, none), there’s either a market for these electric Volkswagen ID-whatevers of yours, or there’s not. You corporate clowns always champion the free market - except when it doesn’t suit you. Which seems oddly selective to me, or contradictory in the least.
USEFUL LINKS ON EVs, INTERNAL COMBUSTION & FACTS
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Admissions target
Entertainingly, the Volkswagen babbling went on.
It pains me to have to point out to a self-defeating carmaker subsidiary and Costello’s crew at CarAdvice that we’re talking about two different things here:
Euro 5 and Euro 6 are exhaust emissions standards for internal combustion engines have no bearing on the commercial viability of EVs in any market, at least, not that I can see.
These standards cover oxides of nitrogen (the notorious toxic compounds senior executive Volkswagen arseholes poisoned the world with using 11 million vehicles as de facto toxin delivery systems just to pump up their profits - and, hey, don’t shoot the messenger; this is a matter of historical fact).
Volkswagen’s now infamous EA189 2.0-litre diesel engine. If you have one, be sure to have the emissions recall campaign carried out by a dealer.
Euro 5 and 6 also cover unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and carcinogenic particles - things of this nature. But they don’t cover CO2 - because CO2 is not strictly pollution. CO2 is an inevitable chemical consequence of hydrocarbon combustion.
NOx and unburned hydrocarbons and particles and carbon monoxide can all be subverted by clever engineering. But CO2 is intrinsic to combustion.
So, even a moron - but apparently not Volkswagen Australia or CarAdvice - can see that Euro 5 or Euro 6 have absolutely no bearing on making a case for shitbox Volkswagen EVs with the factory in Germany.
The regulations that would make a difference on this are average CO2 emissions standards. They call them CAFE standards in the US - for ‘Corporate Average Fuel Economy’. CAFE. Because, as just noted, fuel economy and CO2 emission are flipsides of the same combustion coin.
And because EVs don’t emit tailpipe CO2 - every EV a manufacturer sells reduces the average CO2 emission of its fleet of vehicles.
That’s what we’re really talking about here - a regulatory requirement to meet average CO2 fleet emissions levels. This becomes a lever that demands the sale of a few EVs to make the average CO2 numbers work, and thereby avoid paying fines.
USEFUL LINKS ON EMISSIONS, POLLUTION & CARS
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Scott Morrison, the car industry and the ‘zero emissions’ lie >>
Sadly, Volkswagen was allowed to continue publishing its misinformation, seemingly without end (or basic journalistic scrutiny):
It’s hilarious for me to see: A) The carmaker with the world’s most reprehensible environmental record this century pre-emptively apologising for its failure to sell allegedly clean vehicles here, and blaming the regulatory environment for this failure, before it happens. That’s not, like, totally ironic.
And B) an allegedly ‘expert’ motoring publication Hoover up this bullshit without spilling a drop, or asking a single tough question.
If you want to see bad incentives bending journalism over - I would argue that this story is an excellent example.
These comments from Volkswagen Australia actually reveal that the factory is tremendously supply-limited when it comes to their upcoming electric vehicles. That’s what they’re really saying here.
See, when a factory makes as many cars as it could sell - or more than that - every market gets whipped to sell more. They factory says, ‘Here’s your allocation. Shut up and sell them.’ It’s not as if there’s a choice.
One more final tiny Volkswagen vomit before I let you get back to allegedly working from home:
Imagine that. Australia missing out on the latest range of Volkswagen shitboxes. That’s just terrible. Actually it’s not - it’s pretty much a strong advertisement for the regulatory status quo. When you think about it.
These chumps are (seemingly) operating under the delusion that more Volkswagens would be a good thing for Australia. Au contraire, I’d suggest.
Volkswagens are certainly elegant vehicles that generally go really well … right up until the point when they defecate into their trousers unexpectedly one day, and the parent company throws you under the bus, when you really need support.
Let us not forget that evidence for this includes Volkswagen’s ranking of 28th out of 33 brands in the recent 2021 JD Power US Vehicle Dependability Study.
2021 JD Power Vehicle Dependability: Winners and Losers >>
Volkswagen’s pants-pooping proclivity was identified there as being 35 per cent worse than the industry average. The company found itself ahead of just five other elite shitbox brands: Chrysler, Tesla, Jaguar, Alfa Romeo, and the world’s leading shitbox, Land Rover.
The last thing we need here, pretty clearly, I’d suggest, is any more of any of them.
Mazda’s CX-70 is a large five-seat SUV with generous legroom, loads of equipment and a supremely comfortable ride. It’s one of four new additions to the brand’s prestige model onslaught, but for a fraction the price of a premium German SUV.